This is the third time the conviction has been overturned in cases involving Derek Ridgewell, a police officer who served in the police force in Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, and died in prison in 1982 of a heart attack while serving time on conspiracy charges. For stealing mail bags.
The three men acquitted today, Courtney Harriot, Paul Greene and Cleveland Davidson, were between the ages of 17 and 20 when they were arrested in February 1972 on the London Underground near Stockwell Station in the south of the capital.
Accused of attempting to rob Derek Ridgewell, the trinity and three other friends, renamed Stockwell Six, were found guilty in large part on police charges.
Although they pleaded not guilty and complained of threats and ill-treatment, all but one of the Stockwell Six were convicted and sent to a prison or juvenile detention center.
The case was re-examined by the Criminal Review Board and sent to the Court of Appeal for revision of convictions, with the result that Harriot, Green and Davidson were acquitted.
In announcing the overturning of the sentence, Judge Julian Flo found it “highly regrettable that it took Ridgwell nearly 50 years.
Two other members of the Stockwell Six who have been convicted have not yet been found.
In court statements, Cleveland Davidson, who was 17 years old at the time of his arrest, said the case “ruined” his life and that the Court of Appeal’s decision was “a confession” of their “innocence at the time.”
“It was a façade, a vain ambush. This has influenced me for 50 years, I have never been the same. My family didn’t believe me, nobody believed me, ”he added in his statements after the session, calling Derek Ridgwell“ a dishonest and evil cop ”and wondering how many victims could be, since the police were targeting young blacks. people.
Winston True, the man who was also convicted of attempted robbery in 1972 and whose verdict was overturned by the Court of Appeal in December 2019, said he was “very pleased.”
“My investigation was justified,” he said, referring to the book he wrote “Black for a reason … not only because …” (“Black for a reason … and not just because yes” in free translation), where he describes Derek Ridgewell’s numerous “horse strikes”.
The book was used in another case to overturn a police conviction.
Adrian Hanstock, deputy chief of the British Transport Police, where Derek Ridgwell worked, “sincerely apologized for the mental anguish, harassment and blows suffered by the unjustly convicted person.”
Hanstock added that after “reviewing all available records” of investigations in which Ridgewell was the lead agent, the police “did not identify any additional cases” that, in their opinion, “should be the subject of an internal investigation.”
