Pair jailed by 'corrupt cop' have convictions quashed after 50-year fight
Two men jailed for stealing from a train depot after a probe by Britain's most corrupt officer have today had their convictions overturned after a fight lasting nearly 50 years.
Basil Peterkin and Saliah Mehmet were sent to prison in 1977 for robbing the British Rail depot where they worked and went to their graves as guilty men. Today the Court of Appeal was told they were convicted on the evidence of the "dishonest, corrupt and racist" British Transport Police Det Sgt Derek Ridgewell.
The bent copper's lies put at least nine innocent men behind bars. The men protested their innocence for their entire lives before Mr Peterkin died aged 51 in August 1991 and Mr Mehmet passed away aged 75 in August 2021. Now their convictions 46 years ago have been quashed because Ridgewell's "dishonest" behaviour had undermined the safety of the convictions.
Their families packed the public gallery at the Royal Courts of Justice as they demanded they were cleared posthumously. Lord justice Holroyde said he "regretted" the convictions had not been reviewed earlier, but said: "We cannot turn back the clock but we can quash the convictions."
Henry Blaxland KC, for the appellants, blasted the BTP for failing to sack Ridgwell in 1973 when a series of prosecutions were dismissed over allegations of "police violence" and corruption. He said during one hearing in London, magistrates were "so disturbed by the allegations against Ridgewell that they said there should be an investigation".
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Basil Peterkin also went to prison in 1977 (PA)
Saliah Mehmet was sent to prison in 1977 (PA)He said: "What might have been expected at that point is that the BTP would conduct a thorough investigation in the hope [Ridgewell] would have been dismissed. Instead he was transferred to a different section."
Mr Blaxland also criticised the failure by the BTP to review all the convictions based on Ridgewell's evidence. It meant Ridgwell was free to "effectively fit up" Mr Peterkin and Mr Mehmet.
The men were both sentenced to nine months after they were convicted of stealing from the Bricklayers Arms' Goods Depot in Southwark, South London. Det Sgt Ridgewell, the lead officer who brought the convictions, later admitted to stealing from the same depot. In 1980 he was jailed for seven years for nabbing property worth £364,000. Ridgewell was branded the UK's most crooked copper after making millions with gangsters before his death of a heart attack in prison aged just 37. When asked by a prison officer why he became corrupt he told him: "I just went bent."
Mr Blaxland told the Court of Appeal that Mr Peterkin had left the UK after serving his sentence and moved to the US, where he had a "profound mistrust of the police" and was "deeply affected" by the convictions, it was said. Mr Mehmet harboured the same "mistrust" and even refused to report a robbery to the police when he worked as a minicab driver because "he did not trust them", the court was told.
Det Sgt Derek Ridgewell of the British Transport Police (Copyright unknown)The BTP said they did not oppose the appeals because the "centrality of DS Ridgewell to the case ... fatally undermined the safety of the conviction". The true extent of Ridgewell's criminality and how he was finally brought to justice was only revealed after his death.
Glasgow-born Ridgewell moved to Bromley, South East London, as a boy and joined British Transport Police in his teens in Paddington in 1964. A year later he joined the Rhodesian Police but quit within weeks. On returning home he gave interviews to TV and newspapers condemning the way black citizens were being treated there. But after joining the BTP he started framing dozens of young, mostly black men for "mugging" people on the Underground and beat them up if they resisted.
In February 1972, he nicked four men at Waterloo station. The case was thrown out on the basis that Ridgewell's evidence could not be believed, but he was not punished. A month later he arrested four men - known as the Oval Four - for allegedly stealing passengers' handbags. They were each jailed for eight months but their convictions would be overturned in 2019 and 2020. One of them was Winston Trew, now 70, who spent nearly 50 years trying to clear his name.
Ridgewell arrested him and four at Oval Tube, South London, in 1972 by Det Sgt Derek Ridgewell. They were beaten and jailed for eight months for assaulting an officer, but their convictions were overturned in 2019 by the Court of Appeal. Mr Trew said the experience destroyed his life - but warned there could be "hundreds" of others yet to bring their cases to Royal Courts of Justice.
He told the Mirror: "The case of these two men is just another example of Derek Ridgewell's malicious prosecutions of innocent people. He had a devastating impact on my life and the lives of these two men They both died knowing they were innocent but went to their graves as guilty men.
"This will be a victory for them, but there could be hundreds of other victims yet to be identified and cleared. The British Transport have failed to do enough, they have questions to answer about why they have not investigated others who were wrongly convicted because of Ridgewell."
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In 1972, Ridgewell accused six more young black men of trying to rob him at Stockwell tube station then arrested them with a team of officers. In 2021 three of the five convicted had their convictions quashed. The two remaining members of the Stockwell Six have not yet been traced.
Ridgewell was moved to a department investigating mailbag theft - where he teamed up with criminals to split the profits of stolen post. He also helped villains steal lorry loads of goods from the Bricklayers Arms Goods Depot in Bermondsey, South East London.
The cop and his cronies would fill a vehicle with stolen property overnight for the crooks to drive away the next day. The proceeds of his crimes are believed to be around £4million in today's money.
They were hidden away in five bank accounts, including one in Zurich in a safety deposit box. Despite taking home the wage of a Detective Sergeant, he owned property and businesses. Ridgewell was nailed in 1978 thanks to a major transport police probe.
When he was eventually caught, along with other corrupt officers, Ridgewell hired Bernie Perkoff, a top lawyer used by many gangland figures, but was convicted of conspiracy to rob and jailed for seven years in 1980. He died in his cell of a heart attack in 1982, aged just 37.
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