The Court of Appeal has quashed the theft convictions of two men. A corrupt police officer’s evidence led to their arrest 50 years ago.
Christopher Poulter and Kevin Biggs received their convictions in 1976. The charge related to 13 mailbags taken from a wagon at Clapham goods yard in south London. Mr Poulter was 21 at the time, and Mr Biggs 18. Mr Poulter received a year in prison, while Mr Biggs received a sentence of Borstal training.
Three officers, including Det Sgt Derek Ridgewell, reportedly saw the men take the mailbags and flee by car. The men’s defence was that they had spent the whole night in a pub in Tooting, south London. They said officers then approached and arrested them.
In 1980 Ridgewell received a seven-year prison term for theft of goods worth more than £1 million. It also emerged that he had framed innocent young Black men for crimes he had committed himself.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) referred the case to the Court of Appeal earlier this year. It did so because of the link to Ridgewell.
Mr Biggs died in 2004. His innocence came to light through a British Transport Police investigation that set out to find Ridgewell’s victims.
The two men are the 14th and 15th people to have convictions overturned because of Ridgewell’s misconduct. Stephen Simmons, a third man convicted alongside them, had his conviction quashed in 2018.
Jenny Wiltshire, head of serious and general crime at Hickman and Rose, has represented many of Ridgewell’s victims. After the hearing, she called the time British Transport Police had taken to find those affected a “disgrace”.
Dame Vera Baird KC chairs the CCRC. “It is absolutely right that these men have had their convictions quashed by the court today,” she said. She urged anyone else who believes Ridgewell’s actions led to their conviction to apply to the commission. It could then investigate whether to refer their case to the courts too.
Campaigners now want a proposed Trew’s Law. Under it, the jailing of a police officer would trigger a fresh investigation of every conviction linked to that officer.
The proposal takes its name from Winston Trew. He was one of the ‘Oval Four’. They received convictions for a crime they did not commit, on Ridgewell’s evidence.
