Derek Ridgewell

Derek Ridgewell
Born	(1945-05-09)9 May 1945 King's Park, Glasgow, Scotland
Died	31 December 1982(1982-12-31) (aged 37) HMP Ford, West Sussex, England
Occupation	Police officer
Years active	1965–1980
Organization(s)	British South Africa Police British Transport Police
Known for	Framing several people for robbery offences
Criminal charge	Conspiracy to rob
Penalty	Seven years

Derek Arnold Ridgewell (9 May 1945 – 31 December 1982) was a Scottish police officer in the British Transport Police (BTP) who was involved with a series of arrests followed by court cases in which it was later found that he had framed innocent people, and was eventually jailed for mail theft. When allegations against Ridgewell were first made, BTP moved him to another team instead of dismissing him. Several of those convicted by courts based on Ridgewell's false testimony, including the Oval Four and the Stockwell Six, had their convictions quashed decades later. Ridgewell died of a heart attack in Ford open prison on 31 December 1982.

Early life

Derek Ridgewell was born on 9 May 1945 in King's Park, Glasgow. He had briefly served in the British South Africa Police (BSAP), the police force in Southern Rhodesia, deserting after three weeks when the country unilaterally declared independence as Rhodesia in November 1965, resulting in an arrest warrant being issued against him. He subsequently claimed that he left the BSAP as a matter of principle due to its racism, including in an interview with The Guardian, and the warrant was dropped. Following this he joined the BTP.

Modus operandi

In 1972 Ridgewell was given responsibility for a new mugging squad based in London. Ridgewell's customary behaviour was to dress in plain clothes and confront young men, falsely accusing them of robbing people. If they resisted arrest, he would assault them. He would make up false confessions and then testify at the Old Bailey.

Waterloo Four

Ridgewell and his team first employed his methods against four black men on a tube train in Waterloo station. They were charged with loitering with intent to commit an arrestable offence, and signed confessions, but one of the defendants stated that he put his name to the confession because he feared being assaulted by the police: the defendants, and the girlfriend of one of them who had been travelling on the same train, said that the police's account had been fabricated. The charges were dismissed by a magistrate, and BTP subsequently acknowledged that no witnesses provided evidence for the offences.

Tottenham Court Road Two

Two young black Rhodesian men were arrested at Tottenham Court Road tube station in 1973 and went on trial later that year. They were devout Jesuit social work students from Oxford University and the judge halted the trial, saying "I find it terrible that here in London people using public transport should be pounced upon by police officers without a word." When asked by the defence counsel whether he had been "particularly on the lookout for coloured young men", Ridgeway agreed that this was the case. By this time his actions had attracted media attention, with the BBC Television programme Nationwide and The Sunday Times reporting a calypso song being performed in Brixton pubs which declared that "If the muggers don’t get you, Ridgewell will".

After the trial, Ridgewell was moved from the underground squad to the mail theft unit. He was then moved into a department investigating mailbag theft where he conspired with two criminals to split material stolen from mailbags. He hid the profits of his crimes in five bank accounts, one in Zürich and a bank deposit box.

Conviction

Ridgewell was eventually arrested and convicted of conspiracy to rob and jailed for seven years in 1980. He stole over £1 million (1980) (equivalent to £3.6 million or US$4.59 million in 2019) Although his rank was low, detective sergeant, he owned property and businesses.

The governor of HM Prison Ford asked him why he had embarked on a life of crime to which he replied "I just went bent". He died in prison in 1982, reportedly of a heart attack, possibly murdered, aged 37.

In November 2021, Lucy D'Orsi, the British Transport Police chief constable, apologised to the black community in the United Kingdom "for the trauma suffered by the British African community through the criminal actions" of Ridgewell, adding that "In particular, it is of regret that we did not act sooner to end his criminalisation of British Africans, which led to the conviction of innocent people".

Overturned convictions

Stephen Simmons

Three young white men including Stephen Simmons were in a car in Clapham in June 1975 when they were approached by Ridgewell and two other officers, who questioned them about stolen mailbags. At trial all three pleaded not guilty, but were convicted. Simmons was sent to Borstal in Hollesley Bay to serve eight months. He lost his job and flat, and subsequently suffered from chronic ill health. One of his co-defendants later became an alcoholic and died.

In 2013 Simmons was listening to a radio programme about legal matters in which a barrister answered questions. Simmons rang the programme to ask about his situation; the barrister suggested he make a Google search for the name of his arresting officer, which revealed Ridgewell's conviction. Simmons took his case to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which carried out meticulous research leading to Simmons's 2018 appeal, which overturned his conviction. It also emerged in court that Ridgewell had been responsible for several cases in which young black men were falsely accused of "mugging" on the London Underground.

Simmons said after his conviction was quashed: "This is one of the happiest days of my life, It has hardly sunk in but I am not a criminal any more. I can hold my head up high. One of the hardest things for me was that my parents did not believe me because they were of the generation that believed that the police could not lie.". Of Ridgewell he said "Ridgewell ruined three lives for no reason and I am sure many, many more ... if this can help someone else who was also arrested by him then at least something will have been achieved."

Winston Trew of the Oval Four embraced Simmons after the acquittal and said "today is a great day. This opens the door for me to present my case. It means that evidence that Ridgewell gave in our trial is as tainted as in Stephen's case."

Oval Four

Main article: Oval Four

The Oval Four are four black men—Winston Trew, Sterling Christie, George Griffiths and Constantine "Omar" Boucher—who were arrested by police at Oval tube station in March 1972 accused of stealing passengers' handbags. They initially believed they were being mugged as the officers were in plain clothes and did not initially identify themselves as police. The four were held overnight: they indicated that they had been beaten up and forced to sign confessions to a series of thefts. Their trial eventually lasted five weeks. The only witnesses for the prosecution were the arresting officers, no victims were named in the charges, and Diane O'Connor, a defence witness who saw the police initiate the attacks on the defendants and attempted to intervene, was charged with assault. They were all found guilty of assaulting police officers and attempted theft in November 1972 although they were acquitted of other charges contained in their signed confessions. They were sentenced to two years in prison. Following an appeal led by John Platts-Mills QC, their sentences were reduced to eight months, although the convictions were upheld, and Lord Justice Haymes commented that the reduction did not ameliorate the seriousness of their crimes. Christie was also convicted of stealing a female police officer's handbag.

Their convictions were overturned in 2019 and 2020.

Stockwell Six

Main article: Stockwell Six

A group of young black British men who were put on trial for attempted robbery in 1972 have been referred to as the Stockwell Six. Five of them were convicted and sent to jail or borstal and released after serving sentences (one was sentenced to three years' imprisonment). In 2021, when the men were in their late 60s, the case was referred by the CCRC to the court of appeal, and the convictions for four of them were overturned; the other could not be traced. The judge said that it was "most unfortunate that it has taken nearly 50 years to rectify the injustice suffered".

Saliah Mehmet and Basil Peterkin

Saliah Mehmet and Basil Peterkin, British Rail workers convicted in 1977 on Ridgewell's testimony of conspiracy to steal parcels from a railway yard and jailed for nine months, had their convictions posthumously quashed in January 2024. The miscarriage of justice was only discovered by the Criminal Cases Review Commission when working on the case of another of Ridgewell's victims, and referred back to judges to be reconsidered. When allegations against Ridgewell were first made, BTP moved him to another team instead of dismissing him; and then said in 2021 that they had searched for potentially wrongful convictions linked to Ridgewell, but did not submit this case to the Commission. The men's families called for law to be changed so that all cases linked to corrupt officers are reviewed.

Further reading

• Satchwell, Graham; Trew, Winston (2021). Rot at the Core The Serious Crimes of a Detective Sergeant. Chicago: The History Press. ISBN 9780750996181. A book about Ridgewell's crimes by Trew, one of his victims, and Satchwell, a former detective.