A vulnerable man, wrongly convicted of a 1990 murder in East London, is suing the Metropolitan Police who forced him into falsely confessing to the shooting.

Oliver Campbell was exonerated for the murder of a Hackney shopkeeper in 202 . His legal team are now bringing a claim against the police force who used his condition to ‘badger and bully’ him into a confession. His solicitor, Glyn Maddocks KC, told The Mirror: ‘It’s not going to be easy and the Met will probably fight it.’

Oliver Campbell’s conviction was begrudgingly overturned by the Court of Appeal in 2024 (as reported here), following the ‘absurd’ suggestion that the Crown Prosecution Service may have pushed for a retrial.

In overturning the conviction, the Court of Appeal accepted that there was new evidence in relation to Oliver’s mental state and capacity when he confessed, but dismissed the idea that police coerced him. This is despite the fact that he was interviewed multiple times without a solicitor or appropriate adult present, and that his confessions contained ludicrous details that could not have taken place.

Oliver served 11 years in prison, then over 20 years on licence as a convicted murder.

Despite now having had his conviction overturned, Oliver Campbell will likely never receive compensation for the fact that he was wrongfully imprisoned. Maddocks has described how, due to the change to the law on compensation in 2014, compensation is now ‘a non-starter for people like Oliver’.