Two men convicted as teenagers in a case involving disgraced police officer Derek Ridgewell have had their convictions referred for review, taking the number of people whose cases linked to the corrupt detective have been referred by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) to 17.
Andrew Sam and Wayne Green were convicted together at Marlborough Magistrates’ Court on 15 January 1972 of attempted theft from a person. Sam was 17 and Green was 18. Both were sentenced to three months’ detention after pleading guilty.
The men had been stopped at Tottenham Court Road station in London the previous day by plain-clothes officers. Ridgewell, then a British Transport Police detective sergeant, gave evidence in their case.
The CCRC said Ridgewell played a central role in the prosecution. Following a review, it concluded that new evidence about his misconduct raised a real possibility that the Crown Court would not uphold the convictions.
Because the men pleaded guilty in the magistrates’ court, they had no ordinary right to appeal their convictions. They did appeal their sentences, which were reduced to three-year probation orders on 11 February 1972. The CCRC said most of the original material had since been destroyed, making the case particularly challenging to review.
The latest referrals are the first involving magistrates’ court convictions linked to Ridgewell to be sent to the Crown Court. The CCRC has previously referred 15 related convictions to the Court of Appeal, and all 15 have been quashed.
CCRC chair Dame Vera Baird KC urged anyone who believes they were prosecuted using Ridgewell’s evidence to contact the commission. She said the earlier referrals had helped pave the way for the latest cases.
The referrals come amid calls for Trew’s Law, a proposal by miscarriage of justice charity Appeal that would require automatic reviews of cases investigated by police officers jailed for criminal offences.
The campaign argues that people potentially affected by police corruption should not have to uncover misconduct and pursue appeals themselves. Ridgewell was convicted of theft in 1980 and was later linked to multiple wrongful convictions involving young Black men, including the Oval Four and Stockwell Six.
