Stockwell Six have their convictions quashed after diligent decades of work by Oval Four member Winston Trew

Three black men who were jailed nearly 50 years ago on false allegations of attempting to rob a police officer have today had their convictions quashed at the Court of Appeal.

Courtney Harriot, Paul Green and Cleveland Davidson together with three friends – all aged between 17 and 20 – were arrested while travelling on the London Underground from Stockwell station in February 1972.

They were accused of attempting to rob undercover police officer DS Derek Ridgewell, head of a British Transport Police “anti-mugging squad”.

Claiming that he had been threatened with violence, DS Ridgewell and a team of undercover police colleagues pounced on the six friends, causing some to suffer serious injuries.

At their Old Bailey trial, the men – who together became known as the ‘Stockwell Six’ and are now all aged in their late 60s – pleaded not guilty, arguing that DS Ridgewell and his fellow officers lied, subjected them to violence and told them to sign statements admitting to robbery.

One defendant was acquitted when it was shown his reading and English were not good enough for him to have read the confession he had signed.

But, based mainly on DS Ridgewell’s evidence, the remaining five were convicted, with Harriot sentenced to three years in prison, Davidson to six months and Green to Borstal. The men attempted to appeal their convictions at the time, but their applications were rejected by the Court of Appeal.

Today’s quashing comes after the cases were referred to the Court of Appeal by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC). The CCRC is still trying contact the other two convicted members in order that it can re-examine their cases.

This is the latest in a series of miscarriage of justice cases involving DS Ridgewell, who has become notorious for false allegations made mainly against young black men, many on the London Underground system.

Ridgewell’s corrupt methods were first exposed in a Nationwide documentary and became so notorious that in 1973 there were calls for the Home Secretary to open an inquiry into his cases. Instead, the British Transport Police moved him from a unit investigating ‘muggings’ to its mailbag theft unit, where he continued to break the law.

In 1980 Ridgewell pleaded guilty to conspiracy to steal mailbags involving theft of goods in transit valued at well over £300,000 (equivalent to almost £1.3m today) and was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment. He died in prison in 1982.

Thirty-six years later, in 2018, the Court of Appeal acquitted Stephen Simmons, from Clapham, of mailbag theft after the businessman, who had long protested his innocence, researched DS Ridgewell’s history of criminality on the internet.

In hearings in 2019 and 2020 all four members of the so-called “Oval Four” had their convictions for attempted theft and assault quashed in another alleged Tube ‘mugging’ case run by DS Ridgewell. One of the members of the ‘Oval Four’ is Winston Trew, whose book, Black for a Cause detailed Ridgewell’s long history of ‘fit-ups’ and was used in the Simmons appeal.

Courtney Harriot, Paul Green and Cleveland Davidson were represented at today’s hearing by Jenny Wiltshire of Hickman & Rose Solicitors. Jenny represented Stephen Simmons in his earlier Court of Appeal case and also Winston Trew, George Griffiths and Constantine Boucher of the “Oval Four”.

Speaking after today’s hearing Jenny Wiltshire, Head of Serious and General Crime at Hickman & Rose Solicitors, said:”While the acquittal of these innocent men is welcome news, it is deeply troubling that it has taken so long to happen. These men’s entire adult lives have been blighted by false allegations made by a corrupt police officer known to have been dishonest for decades.

“Both the British Transport Police and the Home Office were warned about Ridgewell’s lies in 1973. Yet neither organisation did anything except move him to a different police unit.

“Even when Ridgewell was convicted of theft in 1980 they did not look again at the many clearly unsafe criminal convictions which had relied on his witness testimony.

“It is only now, almost half a century on, that the British Transport Police has indicated that it will review Ridgewell’s activities. For many of Ridgewell’s innocent victims and their families it is far too little, far too late.”

Pictured: Paul Green (left) and Cleveland Davidson outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, where the pair had their convictions overturned by the Court of Appeal.

 

 

TIMELINE

– In the early 1970s, as head of the BTP’s ‘anti-mugging unit’, DS Derek Ridgewell was involved in four trials which were, or would later become, controversial: ‘The Oval Four’, ‘The Stockwell Six’, ‘The Waterloo Four’ and ‘The Tottenham Court Road Two’.

– The accused in the ‘Tottenham Court Road Two’ case were two devout Jesuit students from Rhodesia who were studying social work at Oxford University. Their trial judge Gwyn Morris halted their trial and said “I find it terrible that here in London people using public transport should be pounced on by police officers without a word.” Magistrates in the “Waterloo Four” case also criticised DS Ridgewell’s methods.

– Both these cases attracted press attention and in 1973 Ian Fraser MP and the National Council for Civil Liberties contacted the Home Secretary to request an inquiry into the cases investigated by DS Ridgewell.

– The inquiry did not happen. British Transport Police transferred DS Ridgewell to another area of work investigating thefts from Royal Mail bags in transit.

– In June 1975 Stephen Simmons and two friends were arrested by DS Ridgewell and two other officers as they sat in Mr Simmons’ car in Clapham, and accused of stealing mailbags.

– The men denied the allegations but were convicted after the police officers told a court that they had admitted the crimes.  In April 1976 they were convicted of theft and, as they were under age 21, sent for Borstal training. Mr Simmons’ car was confiscated.

– In January 1980 DS Ridgewell pleaded guilty to conspiracy to steal from mailbags for which he was sentenced to seven years in prison. He died of natural causes in prison two years later in 1982. He was 37.

– In 2013, Mr Simmons, who went on to become a successful businessman, discovered that his arresting officer, DS Ridgewell, had been convicted of mailbag theft. He contacted to CCRC which investigated his case before referring it to the Court of Appeal which 2018 quashed his conviction.

– The “Oval Four” of Winston Trew, Sterling Christie, George Griffiths and Constantine ‘Omar’ Boucher were arrested at Oval tube station on 16 March 1972.

– After their arrests, they signed confessions written for them by DS Ridgewell in which they admitted attempting to pick a man’s pocket and violently resisting arrest. They also confessed to previous theft offences elsewhere on the Tube network.

– In November 1972 they were convicted at the Old Bailey of the Oval station charges, with Winston Trew, Sterling Christie, and Constantine ‘Omar’ Boucher sentenced to two years in prison, and George Griffiths to a period of Borstal training because of his young age.

– In 2019, after appeal by the CCRC, the Court of Appeal quashed their convictions, with the Lord Chief Justice saying: “Our regret is that it has taken so long for this injustice to be remedied”.