A 50 year old conviction based on the central role of a renowned racist and corrupt officer has been referred the Court of Appeal. The case is the fifteenth to be referred as a potential miscarriage of justice arising from the central role of Derek Ridgewell, a discredited British Transport Police officer behind a series of arrests and convictions in which he framed innocent people for his own criminality.
In the 1970s, DS Ridgewell framed particularly young black men for robberies and thefts, including the Stockwell Six and Oval Four. In 1980 he was jailed for seven years after stealing over £1 million of goods in transit. He died in prison two years later.
In April 1976, Kevin Biggs was convicted of the theft of 13 mailbags full of goods, alongside co-defendants Stephen Simmons and Christopher Poulter. He was sentenced to borstal training.
The prosecution’s case was that the defendants had been seen by three British Transport Police (BTP) officers, including Ridgewell, stealing mailbags in Clapham Goods Yard in the early hours of 4 June 1975. They were alleged to have been spotted by the police and made off in a car. A pursuit ended in their arrest. Biggs never appealed his conviction because he received legal advice that he had no grounds to do so.
In February this year the conviction of Christopher Poulter was referred to the Court of Appeal by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) after he google searched his case and first found out about the miscarriages of justice that had arisen from Ridgewell’s criminality.
The CCRC received the case on behalf of Kevin Biggs, who died in 2004, following the release of news about Poulter’s referral.
CCRC Chair Dame Vera Baird KC said: ‘This is the fifteenth case, referred just a month after we referred Mr Biggs’ co-accused, Mr Poulter, that the CCRC has sent back to the courts where the credibility of corrupt police officer DS Ridgewell was central to the prosecution. If there are any other people who were convicted through police work by Ridgewell, we stand ready to investigate whether we can refer your case to the court of appeal too.’
