Justice for last of the Oval Four... 50 years after being framed by police
News Reporter
THE final member of the “Oval Four” – four young black men framed by a corrupt police officer nearly 50 years ago – has finally had his conviction overturned.
Constantine “Omar” Boucher was with friends Winston Trew, Sterling Christie and George Griffiths – aged between 19 and 23 – when they were arrested at Oval tube station in South London in 1972 by police officers.
The police unit, known as “the mugging squad”, accused them of stealing handbags.
The undercover team was run by Detective Sergeant Derek Ridgewell, who had served in the South Rhodesian police force and was involved in a number of high-profile and controversial cases in the 1970s.
The Oval Four were convicted in November 1972 of attempted theft and assaulting police, following a five-week trial at the Old Bailey.
Quashed
All four were sentenced to two years in jail, later reduced to eight months on appeal.
After a referral by the Criminal Cases Review Commission, Mr Trew, now 69, Mr Christie, 70, and Mr Griffiths, 67, had their convictions overturned by the Appeal Court last December.
The commission had been unable to trace Mr Boucher, 71, but he contacted them after his friends’ convictions were overturned.
At a short hearing in London yesterday, Lord Justice Fulford quashed Mr Boucher’s conviction, saying that the safety of the conviction was “fundamentally undermined by the apparent lack of integrity of DS Ridgewell and the team he led”.
He added: “It is clear that Mr Boucher’s conviction is unsafe. It is highly unfortunate that it has taken nearly 50 years to rectify
Winston, pictured left as a young man, was among the four framed and sent to jail in 1972, their plight prompting posters of anger and resolve from supporters, relatives and friends, right
this injustice.” The hearing was conducted with the judges in the courtroom, but with barristers representing Mr Boucher and the prosecution on a telephone link.
In a statement after the hearing, Mr Boucher’s solicitor Jenny Wiltshire said: “While it is happy news… the fact it has taken so long is very concerning.
“DS Ridgewell was first denounced as corrupt in 1973. He was imprisoned in 1980.
“The British Transport Police could have re-examined his cases then. But they didn’t.
“They instead left it to his victims to try and work out for themselves exactly how they had been set up and to gather evidence they needed to prove their innocence.
“British Transport Police should conduct a wholesale review of all this officer’s cases.”
Winston Trew played a major part in the appeals by conducting his own inquiry into Ridgewell. He welcomed yesterday’s decision, saying: “The quashing of Omar’s convictions finally puts an end to the case of the Oval Four. Although I have not seen him since the late 1970s, I expect he will be feeling as happy as me.”
Ms Wiltshire said Mr Boucher was grateful to the court, adding: “Having spent 48 years unfairly labelled a criminal, he was keen to have this heard as soon as possible.The court agreed and conducted the hearing by phone.”
Ridgewell was involved in a series of controversial cases in the early 1970s in which young black men were falsely accused of crimes, culminating in the 1973 acquittals of the “Tottenham Court Road Two”, two young Jesuits studying at Oxford University.
He was then moved into a department investigating mailbag theft, where he joined up with two criminals with whom he split the profits of stolen mailbags.
Ridgewell was eventually caught and jailed for seven years, dying of a heart attack in prison in 1982 at the age of 37.
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