Winston Trew seeks overturn of his jail sentence for wrongful arrest 48 years ago: ‘It’s been a long time coming’

BY TOBY PORTER
toby@slpmedia.co.uk

A former college lecturer stands on the threshold of having his conviction of theft and assault nearly 50 years ago overturned.

The case of Winston Trew, jailed in 1972 for two years, will be heard in the Court of Appeal early next year.

The 69-year-old was told on October 2 that he had won his fight to have his case heard again in the Royal Courts of Justice.

Mr Trew, from Crofton Park, said: “Celebrations? That will be premature and it’s not my style.

“It has been a long time coming.”

The policeman who testified against Mr Trew, Detective Sergeant Derek Ridgewell, was jailed for mailbag theft in 1980 and died there of a heart attack aged 37.

That was revealed by Winton’s own detective work – and the retired lecturer at London South Bank University has already helped overturn the conviction of another man, Stephen Simmons, jailed for two years in 1976 on Ridgewell’s evidence.

Mr Trew is one of four black men who could finally be cleared nearly 50 years after they were jailed for theft and assaulting the police in a case in which they claimed to have been framed and beaten.

Mr Trew, along with Sterling Christie, George Griffiths and Constantine “Omar” Boucher were arrested in March 1972 after undercover police officers confronted them at Oval Tube station and accused them of “nicking handbags” on the network.

They were held overnight, allegedly beaten in the cells and charged with attempting to steal, theft, and assault of the police.

He was found not guilty of theft because the only ones he “confessed” to were when he could prove to the court he was signing on at the Peckham Labour Exchange at the same time.

All four were convicted instead of assault and attempted thefts, after a five-week Old Bailey trial and jailed for two years in November 1972.

Their sentences were reduced on appeal but their convictions upheld.

The appeal court judge, Lord Justice James, told them they should appreciate the “gravity” of their offences and would not see the small reduction of their sentences as a “sign of weakness”.

Last year, Mr Trew applied to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which has now referred the convictions to the Court of Appeal. “Finally we are getting justice,” he said.

Mr Christie’s case will also be part of the appeal but the other two cannot be traced and may have moved overseas.

Winston, the son of a police officer, would be entitled to compensation if he is cleared.

He said: “We wanted to clear our names. The wounds are too painful to leave it at that.

Prison was horrible. I shall try to get some redress for my bitter experience. It shattered me. My marriage broke up. I lost confidence and I felt incredibly lonely.

“Ridgewell threw a hand grenade into my life and shattered it but I am not a person who gives up easily. Over the years I managed to rebuild my life and restore my confidence.

“I didn’t know the type of person I was until I was trapped in that police cell with him and his colleagues overnight. That has become part of who I am.

“I don’t feel like a victim – I have fought my way out of this. I believe in myself. If I had not, I would have gone mad.”

He was writing for Time Out magazine in 1980 when it ran a story that Ridgewell had been arrested. But Winston was told that an appeal had little chance of success.

Ridgewell secured a string of convictions of young black men by confronting them at underground stations, accusing them of theft and then attribute incriminating remarks to them. If they resisted arrest, they were accused of assaulting the police.

He also arrested those who became known as the Stockwell Six, the Waterloo Four and the Tottenham Court Road Two – held at the Tube station in 1973.

But the last duo were devout Jesuit students from Oxford University and the judge, Gwyn Morris, halted their trial and 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 to a department investigating mailbag theft and was imprisoned for stealing mailbags worth £367,000 in 1980, before dying in prison.

Mr Winston, who has two sons with his second wife, Hyacinth, was a youth worker for several years before lecturing in social sciences at LSBU – then called South Bank University – from 1987 to 2000.

He was recovering from a stroke when he used the Freedom of Information Act to discover Ridgewell had died in prison.

Winston’s book on the case, Black for a Cause, was published in 2010.