Final Stockwell Six case referred over corrupt cop

The final member of the Stockwell Six, a group of friends accused of trying to rob a corrupt police officer more than 50 years ago, could have his name cleared after his conviction was referred to the Court of Appeal.

Ronald De Souza was one of six young men accused of trying to rob British Transport Police (BTP) officer Det Sgt Derek Ridgewell while on a night out in London in 1972.

All six pleaded not guilty, but after a trial at the Old Bailey, five were convicted despite telling jurors that police officers had lied and subjected them to violence and threats.

The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which investigates miscarriages of justice, has now reviewed Mr De Souza's conviction.

The review was initiated after the commission appealed for Mr De Souza to come forward after the convictions of his co-defendants, Paul Green, Courtney Harriot, Cleveland Davidson and Texo Johnson, were quashed in 2021.

"The CCRC has concluded that the Court of Appeal is likely to take the same approach to Mr De Souza's conviction as it did for his co-defendant Mr Johnson, his case also being 'materially indistinguishable' from those of his co-defendants and other related convictions overturned by the Court of Appeal," the body said.

"Therefore there is a real possibility the Court of Appeal will now quash Mr De Souza's conviction."

The sixth member of the so-called Stockwell Six, Everet Mullins, was acquitted because it was shown that his reading ability was not good enough for him to have read and fully understood his signed statement, which was written for him by Ridgewell.

The convictions were overturned on the basis of new information rendering the evidence of Ridgewell and his colleagues unreliable, the CCRC said.

Ridgewell, who previously served in the South Rhodesian, now Zimbabwean, police force, was involved in a number of high-profile and controversial cases in the early 1970s and was convicted of stealing in 1980.

Mr De Souza's solicitor, Jenny Wiltshire, said: "While it is good news that the CCRC has referred Mr De Souza's conviction to the Court of Appeal, it is a tragedy that it has taken over 50 years for the miscarriage of justice he suffered to start to be rectified."

She said when Ridgewell was convicted that was when his employer, BTP, should have immediately reviewed every criminal investigation he had been involved in.

"But it didn't. As a result it has taken half a century for the individual people victimised by him to come forward and fight to clear their names," she added.

"Nor was DS Ridgewell's corruption confined to only the Stockwell Six and Oval Four cases.

"Indeed, I am not confident that all his victims have yet been identified."

In 1972 Ridgewell, who was wearing plain clothes, claimed the group of young men, who boarded the train at Stockwell station in south London, attempted to rob him, before he fought back and arrested them with a team of undercover officers.

Ridgewell's involvement in a string of controversial cases in the early 1970s culminated in the 1973 acquittals of the so-called Tottenham Court Road Two, two young Jesuits studying at Oxford University.

Ridgewell was moved into a department investigating mailbag theft, where he joined two criminals with whom he split the profits of stolen mailbags.

He was caught and jailed for seven years, and died of a heart attack in prison in 1982, aged 37.

The CCRC urges anyone who believes they are a victim of a miscarriage of justice having been convicted in a case involving Ridgewell to contact them.

Listen to the best of BBC Radio London on Sounds and follow BBC London on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected]