A father in the UK who was wrongfully imprisoned for over five years shared his harrowing experience following Peter Sullivan’s release.

Peter Sullivan, aged 68, was recently exonerated after spending 38 years behind bars for a murder he did not commit, marking one of the longest instances of injustice faced by a living prisoner in the UK.

For Brian Buckle, 53, a father and former construction manager from Fishguard, Wales, this case sounds all-too familiar.

In 2017, Brian was convicted of historic child sex abuse and sentenced to a 15-year prison term by a jury at Swansea Crown Court.

His conviction was overturned when another trial acquitted Brian after fresh analysis found DNA evidence used against him at his original hearing was flawed.

It cost him $669,300 to fight the case.

Brian walked away a free man — but has been left with nothing, after the family’s savings were spent on his appeal and the UK Government denied him compensation.

He was not eligible for government legal aid to help employ a legal team because his household’s disposable income was more than $50,200 a year.

Speaking of what it feels like to be wrongly convicted — like Sullivan — he said he felt like he was in a movie. He could not process what was happening to him and how his life was about to change forever.

He was sick to his stomach.

Brian didn’t believe it when he heard the guilty verdict. He sat in the dock wondering what was going on — even asking the court security officers behind him what was happening.

They responded: “You’re coming with us, mate.”

Brian was held in the vulnerable people wing of the HM Prison Parc in Bridgend, Wales — an area where sex offenders, child abusers and police officers are held.

He said: “I just sat down at the table, just crying and crying.

“This officer came in and got me and just said: ‘Two ways you can get through prison. Just get on with it, do what you’re told. Or if you want to be treated like a d—k, then just act like one.’

“At a family visit, another prison officer told my family he could tell I stuck out from the rest of them. I was lost.”

The “hardest time” Brian said, was when he wasn’t able to speak to Elaine and his family for about four weeks as he was processed and assigned a prison number.

Brian said: “I just cried and cried the first night. I was on constant cell watch because of the risk of suicide. I didn’t sleep. Everything goes through your head: ‘What do I do? How has this happened?’”

As he was kept in a VP unit, he was subjected to verbal abuse from other prisoners.

They would call him “nonce” and “peado” while he walked to the prison gym.

But when he spoke to some of them, Brian says, they would empathize more.

The doting father had missed his daughter Georgia’s 18th and 21st birthdays as well as anticipated milestones like teaching her to drive and giving his sister-in-law away at her wedding — reading out a speech from behind bars at the reception.

But Christmas was the hardest, he said.

Family is important to the Buckles and Brian would usually take two weeks off work to celebrate and be with his loved ones.

He instead had to call them from a cell and buy a Terry’s Chocolate Orange as a treat.

Elaine, 59, says the early days were the hardest.

She said: “I stayed up all night crying. How am I and Georgia going to live without him? How are we going to cope? I didn’t have a job or anything, and it was just all the bad things. How is he coping in there?

“After drinking coffee all night, I thought: ‘Right, I can’t go through this crying. I’ve got to get my act together. Now it’s me who has to do all of this, isn’t it?’

“I got dressed and I went up to the local supermarket, and I had a bit of an attitude about me. I thought: ‘You want to speak about anything? Ask me’, because I was ready for everyone, because there’s nothing worse than being accused of being a pedophile.

“Everybody in Fishguard knows us.

“People were lovely. They were either being two-faced or they were genuinely being lovely.

“Nobody said anything bad.

“I was waiting to come home and see ‘Pedophile’ written all over the house.”

Elaine got into action. She began by going to the job center and got a job as a support worker and carer.

She found a lawyer and hired a private investigator to interview people around their area to help with the appeal.

The original case hinged around Brian’s sperm allegedly being found in the alleged victim’s journal – something he could not explain despite protesting his innocence.

He gave police leads but said they neglected to follow them up and rushed through the case. He also regrets the legal advice he sought at the time.

Elaine, Georgia, now 24, and Brian’s mom Jackie and aunt Daphne fought for his release.

Elaine’s late father Duncan helped fight the case in part through the sale of his house. He wanted to see Brian a free man and was able to spend seven months with him before he passed away at the age of 95.

A five-year legal battle culminated in the Court of Appeal finding his conviction unsafe.

Brian’s legal team then produced new witnesses and fresh forensic evidence at a three-week trial in 2023.

During the original trial Brian said the semen in the journal could have been taken from a condom.

But during that trial, it was argued this wasn’t possible — because the sample didn’t contain PDMS, a lubrication found in condoms.

However, ahead of the retrial, the sample was sent to new experts.

They said they found PDMS.

Prosecutors argued this could have come from another source — like shampoo — but further testing saw Brian’s lawyers present evidence which claimed tests showed there was a 99.9 percent likelihood it came from a condom.

The jury unanimously returned a verdict of “not guilty” in just over an hour.

Brian said: “They told me: ‘Mr Buckle, you’re going home.’

“I didn’t know what was going on.

“I just couldn’t believe it. My God, I’ve spent five and a half years for nothing, just for lies and laziness by the police — it was just unbelievable.”

He was taken aback when he first walked out the door into freedom.

“Everything was blurry,” he said. “It was like I had been dropped somewhere.

“We stopped for food and I burned my mouth because it was the first time I had had properly hot food in five and a half years.”

The world was different — with even smaller things like the new plastic bank notes being remarkable to Brian.

He returned home, which had been hastily decorated to celebrate his arrival, and was overwhelmed. He just wanted quiet.

He developed an obsessive tendency to clean the house each morning. He became reclusive and didn’t want to see people. Going into town would leave him with nervous palpitations, even when people came up to shake his hand.

Brian was still nervous about people talking and grew paranoid. Noises made him jump and took him back to his prison days.

Before prison, the couple were planning to retire at 55. But now they find themselves rebuilding their lives, with Brian unfit for work and claiming benefits.

Elaine says Brian has lost out on compensation for spending five and a half years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, as well as the money spent on legal fees and the five and a half years of lost wages. His pension also stopped when he went into jail.

Brian said: “I’ve lost a good career that I built up from basically nothing. I worked hard and provided for my family and then lost everything.

“My head’s not in the right space. I get up in the mornings, and I don’t want to get up.

“I’m not the same person I was. I’m totally different. I’m more serious.”

He says he has to watch his tone as he sometimes speaks bluntly or in an emotionally detached manner.

He puts this down to training himself while in prison to not have emotions, vulnerability or weakness.

He finds himself uncomfortable and careful around women and children, even those in his family, because of the accusations leveled at him for the five years.

He said: “I absolutely hate myself for it but I can’t get rid of that feeling. I think I don’t want to put myself in a situation where I’m vulnerable.”

He had a few mental health sessions to treat his post-traumatic stress disorder but says his local NHS team doesn’t have appropriate training and he cannot afford to go private. He worries he will live with this forever.

He said: “If you’re a guilty person, and you come out of prison, you get looked after — probation, you get housed, you get medical, you get counseling, you get everything you need to get through the government.”

A law changed in 2014 by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government states that if a victim of a miscarriage of justice in England and Wales wants to receive compensation, they must not only be cleared, but also demonstrate they are innocent.

The $50,200 household income threshold dates back to a decision by former justice secretary Chris Grayling.

Brian said: “One of the ministers said if the Birmingham six and the Guildford four would have gone through the system now, they wouldn’t have got compensation.”