Episode 3 of The Overturn – Mark “Ozzy” Osbourne: Accused of while Murder Behind Bars

Listen to the full episode below, or via Spotify.

In 2009, Mark “Ozzy” Osbourne was convicted of murder, despite the fact that he was in prison for an unrelated lesser offence when the killing occurred. The shambolic evidence of a prison snitch helped secure the conviction, which could see him jailed for a total of 30 years.

The case is currently with the Criminal Cases Review Commission as they try to secure new evidence about the snitch’s character that could see the case overturned.

In 2009, Mark ‘Ozzy’ Osbourne was convicted of the fatal shooting of his friend Mark Tredinnick. Tredinnick was shot dead in a country lane on the rural outskirts of east London in June 2007. Ozzy had been in prison several years when he was arrested for the murder. His conviction for Tredinnick’s murder was based on two highly contention areas of law – Joint Enterprise and the testimony of a prison cell snitch. 

The jailhouse snitch in Ozzy’s case was his cellmate, Kahim Ali, an illegal immigrant from Somalia, Ali had numerous criminal convictions since entering the UK, including robbery with a firearm.

Home Office records described him as a ‘habitual offender’ with 12 known aliases and eight different dates of birth. Julie Major, who has been campaigning on Ozzy’s behalf, has said ‘he was a known con-artist.’

A week before Tredinnick was killed, the Home Office had sent Ali a letter saying it was considering deporting him. When Tredinnick was shot Ozzy started getting calls on a mobile phone telling him that his friend was dead. It isn’t clear exactly what Ali heard, but he then approached a prison guard and claimed he could implicate his cellmate in a murder. 

Julie has been campaigning on behalf of Ozzy since the start of the case, even getting a law degree in the process. She previously had little faith in the Criminal Cases Review Commission and their re-investigation of the case, but now believes the cogs are beginning to turn and their may be some progress. For the latest issue of PROOF magazine she told Newsquest journalist, Charles Thompson, that the body is now actively seeking records that might shed new light on Ali’s character, requesting files from the CPS, the NHS and the prison service. 

In this episode Julie tells us what she believes really happened, and describes her long fight to clear Ozzy’s name.