{"id":16135,"date":"2019-12-06T02:09:29","date_gmt":"2019-12-06T07:09:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=16135"},"modified":"2019-12-06T02:09:29","modified_gmt":"2019-12-06T07:09:29","slug":"oval-four-men-have-convictions-quashed-in-corrupt-detective-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2019\/12\/06\/oval-four-men-have-convictions-quashed-in-corrupt-detective-case\/","title":{"rendered":"Oval Four: Men have convictions quashed in corrupt detective case"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Three men who were jailed nearly 50 years ago on the evidence of a corrupt police officer have had their convictions quashed.<\/p>\n

Winston Trew, Sterling Christie, George Griffiths and another man were accused of stealing handbags in 1972.<\/p>\n

The group known as the Oval Four spent eight months in prison for assaulting a police officer and attempted theft.<\/p>\n

The Court of Appeal overturned the convictions due to the unreliability of a detective’s evidence.<\/p>\n

After the hearing, Mr Trew urged anyone wrongfully convicted by evidence given by Det Sgt Derek Ridgewell to bring forward a challenge.<\/p>\n

“If you are innocent, don’t give up,” he said.<\/p>\n

Judges described the cases as “a very unhappy story” and all three men thanked those who helped overturn their convictions.<\/p>\n

The men, who belonged to a political organisation representing black people in London, were aged between 19 and 23 at the time.<\/figure>\n

\"Winston<\/span>
Winston Trew said his life fell apart after he served eight months in prison (Image: Winston Trew)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mr Trew, Mr Christie, now both 69, and Mr Griffiths, 67, were arrested with another man, Constantine “Omar” Boucher, at Oval tube station by officers who accused them of mugging women.<\/p>\n

A plain clothes police operation was set up on the Northern Line led by Ridgewell, who was later jailed for seven years for conspiracy to steal.<\/p>\n

Judge Lord Burnett said there was “an accumulating body of evidence that points to the fundamental unreliability of evidence given by DS Ridgewell… and others of this specialist group”.<\/p>\n

Mr Griffiths’ solicitor Jenny Wiltshire welcomed the decision, but said it was “deeply concerning that it has taken so long to happen”.<\/p>\n

“Both the British Transport Police and the Home Office were warned about this police officer’s corrupt methods in 1973.<\/p>\n

“They did nothing except move him to a different unit, where he continued to offend so that by 1980 he was serving a seven-year prison sentence for theft,” she added.<\/p>\n

Ridgewell was moved to a department investigating mailbag theft, where he joined up with two criminals splitting the profits of stolen mailbags.<\/p>\n

In 1982 he died of a heart attack in prison aged 37.<\/p>\n

Mr Boucher’s conviction was not quashed as the criminal cases review team had been been unable to find him.<\/p>\n

\"Poster\"<\/span>
The Oval Four were originally jailed for two years but that was reduced on appeal (Image: Winston Trew)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Lord Chief Justice Lord Burnett who was sitting with Mrs Justice McGowan and Sir Roderick Evans said it was: “Clear that these convictions are unsafe.<\/p>\n

“We would wish only to note our regret that it has taken so long for this injustice to be remedied,” he added.<\/p>\n

Last January, the 1976 convictions of another man, Stephen Simmons was quashed after Ridgewell was found to have been involved in his case.<\/p>\n

“It is a travesty that these men have waited 47 years for exoneration for crimes that they did not commit. Justice has now finally been done,” said Mr Christie’s lawyer Steven Bird.<\/p>\n

Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three men who were jailed nearly 50 years ago on the evidence of a corrupt police officer have had their convictions quashed. Winston Trew, Sterling Christie, George Griffiths and another man were accused of stealing […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16136,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[1192,6801,3173,4292,6802],"class_list":{"0":"post-16135","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-uk","9":"tag-british-transport-police","10":"tag-clapham","11":"tag-court-of-appeal","12":"tag-home-office","13":"tag-oval","14":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16135"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16137,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16135\/revisions\/16137"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}