Two men have had theft convictions overturned nearly 50 years after they were framed for crimes they did not commit by one of Britain’s most corrupt police officers.
Christopher Poulter and Kevin Biggs were 21 and 18 respectively in 1976 when they were found guilty of stealing 13 mailbags from a wagon at Clapham goods yard in south London.
The pair had been arrested by disgraced detective sergeant Derek Ridgewell.
Ridgewell was sentenced to seven years in prison in 1980 after stealing goods worth more than £1 million. He was also found to have framed scores of innocent young black men for offences he had committed himself.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission referred Mr Poulter and Mr Biggs’s case to the Court of Appeal earlier this year after new evidence concerning Ridgewell emerged. Their convictions have now been quashed.
Ridgewell was one of three officers who claimed they had seen the two men take the mailbags before escaping in a car.
The defence argued that Mr Poulter and Mr Biggs had spent the entire night in a pub in Tooting, south London, before officers approached and arrested them.
Mr Poulter was sentenced to 12 months in prison at Inner London Crown Court, while Mr Biggs was sent to a borstal.
Derek Ridgewell, from Bromley, Kent, deserted from the Rhodesian Police Force and was repatriated to Britain by British consular officials at Beira in Mozambique on Sunday, November 14, 1965
Evidence of Mr Biggs’s innocence came to light during a British Transport Police investigation into Ridgewell’s activities, as officers sought to identify people he had wrongfully convicted.
Mr Biggs, who died in 2004, and Mr Poulter are the 14th and 15th people to have their convictions overturned in connection with Ridgewell’s misconduct.
They had been convicted alongside Stephen Simmons, whose conviction was quashed in 2018.
At Tuesday’s hearing, Lord Justice Edis, sitting with Mr Justice Lavender and Mr Justice Linden, said the three appeals should have been considered together.
“It had not been possible to add any relatives of Mr Biggs, who had by then died, or find Mr Poulter, so they could be joined on to the appeal by Mr Simmons,” he said.
He added: “The two appeals are allowed and the convictions quashed.”
Jenny Wiltshire, head of serious and general crime at Hickman and Rose, who has represented many of Ridgewell’s victims, said after the hearing that it was a “disgrace” that British Transport Police had taken so long to locate those affected.
She said: “It is now half a century since these two men were found guilty of a crime they did not commit.
Sergeant Derek Ridgewell died in prison in 1982 after framing scores of black men for crimes they had not committed
“British Transport Police knew for certain that the officer whose evidence sent them to prison was corrupt just four years after their convictions, and probably much earlier.
“The British Transport Police did nothing at the time and have only relatively recently begun treating this issue seriously.”
‘As a result of this inaction, Christopher Poulter has lived the majority of his life as a convicted criminal. Kevin Biggs died as one.’
The Daily Mail has approached BTP for comment.
In July last year, other victims of Ridgewell, who framed scores of innocent black men for crimes they didn’t commit, called for a change in the law after judges quashed the 13th wrongful conviction.
DISCOVER MORE: First Ship Sinks in Red Sea as a Result of Houthi Strikes, Fuel, Fertilizer Create Ecological Nightmare – NewsFinale
Detective Sergeant Derek Ridgewell’s racism and rampant criminality at British Transport Police (BTP) became so notorious in 1973 that the then Home Secretary Robert Carr faced calls for a public inquiry.
But it was another 50 years before the true scale of his criminalisation of innocent young black men emerged.
Errol Campbell, who died in 2004, and Ronald De Souza, 71, who were framed by the bent officer in the 1970s, were finally cleared today at the Court of Appeal.
The historic decision means a total of 13 wrongful convictions based on Ridgewell’s lies have now been quashed by appeal judges following one of the biggest miscarriages of justice ever perpetrated by a British police officer.
Now the families of those posthumously cleared are calling for a new law that would allow for the automatic independent review of cases involving police officers who are jailed.
Mr De Souza is the last member of the so-called ‘Stockwell Six’, a group of young black men falsely accused of trying to rob Ridgewell on the London Underground, to have his conviction overturned.
He was sentenced to six months in prison in 1972 for attempted robbery but within a year Ridgewell’s corrupt methods had become so notorious that MPs called for the Home Secretary to open an inquiry.
British Transport Police quietly moved Ridgewell from investigating muggings to its mailbag theft unit where he stole £364,000 worth of property, equivalent to almost £1.3million today.
In 1977 former British rail employee, Mr Campbell was wrongly jailed for 18 months for theft and conspiracy to steal from the Bricklayers’ Arms goods depot, based on evidence planted by Ridgewell to cover his own criminality.
Ridgewell’s theft was later discovered and he was sentenced to seven years in 1980, dying of a heart attack in prison two years later at the age of 37.
Despite his disgrace, it has taken victims and their families decades to prove their innocence through research at the National Archives and freedom of information requests, in which time some of those wrongly convicted have died.
Errol Campbell Jr (left) and solicitor Matt Foot speaking outside the Royal Courts of Justice after Mr Campbell Jr’s father, Errol Campbell, was posthumously cleared at the Court of Appeal in July last year
Errol Campbell, one of Ridgewell’s victims, is pictured here in 1958
Today Lord Justice Holroyde, sitting with Mr Justice Butcher and Mr Justice Wall, said it was ‘very regrettable’ that Ridgewell’s cases had not been reviewed earlier.
Errol Campbell Jr told the court his father ‘was a ruined man’ after his wrongful conviction.
His solicitor Matt Foot said BTP knew that Ridgewell was corrupt but ‘let him carry on regardless’.
He added: ‘We are calling for a change in the law that, when a police officer goes to prison, there is an automatic review of their cases to look for miscarriages of justice.
‘If that had happened, that would have saved more than 45 years of misery for the Campbell family.’
BTP Assistant Chief Constable Doyle said in July last year: ‘We are sincerely sorry to those affected by the criminal actions of former BTP Detective Sergeant Derek Ridgewell, whose appalling actions in the 1970s and 1980s led to the criminalisation of innocent people.
‘We’re continuing to review records relating to his corrupt practices, which includes those relating to officers who were associated with DS Ridgewell or may have assisted him in his criminal activity, and the review team has recently been provided with additional resources to support its work.
‘I am disgusted by the actions of Derek Ridgewell, and while we know we can’t change the past, his actions do not represent the BTP of today.
‘We continue to actively pursue a criminal investigation into the actions of those involved.’
- Do YOU have a story? Email William.G.Hallowell@dailymail.co.uk