Three Black men who were wrongly convicted nearly 50 years ago on the evidence of a corrupt police officer have finally had their names cleared by senior judges.
Winston Trew, Sterling Christie and George Griffiths were arrested – along with Constantine “Omar” Boucher – at Oval Underground station in 1972 by police who accused them of stealing handbags.
The patrol that arrested them, set up to target thefts on the Northern line, was led by Detective Sergeant Derek Ridgewell, who was later jailed for seven years for conspiracy to steal.
The “Oval Four”, as they became known, were convicted of attempted theft and assaulting police. Christie was also found guilty of theft of a handbag, following a five-week trial at the Old Bailey.
All four were jailed for two years, later reduced to eight months on appeal.
Earlier this year, Trew, Christie and Griffiths had their cases referred to the Court of Appeal by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) after another conviction involving Ridgewell was overturned in January 2018.
Boucher’s conviction has not been referred as the CCRC have not been able to track him down.
In court on Thursday, lord chief justice Lord Burnett said there was “an accumulating body of evidence that points to the fundamental unreliability of evidence given by Detective Sergeant Ridgewell [...] and others of this specialist group”.
The judge said it was “clear that these convictions are unsafe”, adding: “We would wish only to note our regret that it has taken so long for this injustice to be remedied.”
Speaking outside court after the brief hearing, Trew said: “I feel great – I feel fantastic.
“For more than 45 years I have been trying to get my conviction quashed – today the lord chief justice has told me exactly what I wanted to hear.
“Words don’t exist to explain how much it means to me. I am so happy.”
In 2010, Trew wrote a book Black For A Cause... Not Just Because about the Oval Four incident, which has been described as “possibly the first book on the British Black Power movement written from the inside”.
On his website, Trew said he and three other men targeted by police were members of Fasimba, a youth Black Power group. Earlier this year, he told the Guardian he was returning from a meeting of the organisation on the night he was arrested.
Meanwhile, Christie said: “I wish to thank everyone who supported us over the years in trying to right this miscarriage of justice, those who attended meetings, raised funds and distributed leaflets from various organisations.
“I would also like to thank my family and friends who have always supported us and known the truth about these convictions.”
Ridgewell was involved in a number of high-profile and controversial cases in the 1970s culminating in the acquittals of the “Tottenham Court Road Two” – two young Jesuits studying at Oxford University.
Throwing out the case against the pair in 1973, Judge Gwynn Morris said: “I find it terrible that, here in London, people using public transport should be pounced upon by police officers without a word.”
Ridgewell was moved into a department investigating mailbag theft, where he joined up with two criminals with whom he split the profits of stolen mailbags.
He was eventually caught and jailed for seven years, dying of a heart attack in prison in 1982 at the age of 37.
Last January, Stephen Simmons’ 1976 conviction for stealing mailbags was quashed after he discovered Ridgewell was later jailed for a similar offence just two years after his own conviction.