A man wrongfully convicted of attempted robbery has had his name cleared at the Court of Appeal, more than 50 years after being the victim of a racist miscarriage of justice.
Ronald De Souza is the final member of the Stockwell Six to have his conviction quashed, after being accused of trying to rob corrupt British Transport Police officer Det Sgt Derek Ridgewell.
Mr De Souza was jailed for six months for allegedly trying to rob Ridgewell on a night out in south London in 1972, despite telling jurors that officers had subjected him and his co-defendants to violence and threats.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) reviewed his conviction after previously overturning those of his co-defendants Courtney Harriot, Cleveland Davidson, Texo Johnson and Paul Green in 2021.
The sixth member of the Stockwell Six had been acquitted after it emerged that his reading ability was not good enough for him to have read and understood his own written statement, which had been written in his place by Ridgewell.
Quashing Mr De Souza’s convictions, Lord Justice Holroyde said: “We regret that this court cannot now put right all that he has suffered.
“However, we can and do allow his appeal and quash his conviction.”
Another of Ridgewell’s victims, Errol Campbell, had his conviction overturned posthumously on Thursday at the Court of Appeal.
Mr Campbell, who died in 2004, was found guilty of theft and conspiracy to steal in April 1977 and sentenced to a total of 18 months’ imprisonment at the Old Bailey in relation to thefts from the Bricklayers Arms Goods Depot, where he was a British Rail employee.
Giving his judgment on Thursday, Lord Justice Holroyde, sitting with Mr Justice Butcher and Mr Justice Wall, said that it was with “regret” that the court could not undo Mr Campbell’s suffering.
Ridgewell led the case against Mr Campbell and several others, but along with colleagues DC Douglas Ellis and DC Alan Keeling, later pleaded guilty to stealing from the same goods depot.
In a previous judgment, the court found their criminal activities between January 1977 and April 1978 resulted in the loss from the depot of goods to the value of about £364,000 – “an enormous sum of money at that time”.
Referring to the ruling in Saliah Mehmet and Basil Peterkin’s cases, Lord Justice Holroyde said fresh evidence as to the “dishonesty” of those three British Transport Police officers has underpinned a series of CCRC references to the court.
Reading a statement on his behalf outside the Royal Courts of Justice, Mr Campbell’s son’s solicitor, Matt Foot, said: “The British Transport Police (BTP) knew that Detective Sergeant Derek Ridgewell was corrupt and they let him carry on regardless with what he was doing.
“My dad always said he was innocent and today that’s finally been confirmed, almost 50 years later.”
The Assistant Chief Constable of the BTP has said he is “disgusted” by the actions of discredited former detective sergeant Ridgewell, and that they are continuing to review records relating to his corrupt practices.
