The Stockwell Six: Crime, Corruption and Miscarriage of Justice

On July 6, 2021, the convictions for Courtney Harriot, Paul Green, and Cleveland Davidson were overturned. These were three members of the Stockwell Six, a group of Black teenagers that were framed for mugging in 1970’s London.

In 1972, the group of six were convicted of assault with intent to rob, and five of them were subject to sentences in prison and borstal (British youth detention centers). These charges were brought to attention by Detective Sergeant Derek Ridgewell, who was dressed in plain clothing as part of an anti-mugging squad and reportedly trapped the youths into mugging him before other members of his squad arrived to arrest them. At the time, the police officers were the only witnesses to the “crime”, yet the friend group, who were labelled as a gang, were convicted swiftly and brutally.

Paul Green (left) and Cleveland Davidson (right) after having their sentences overturned. Photo by Stefan Rousseau

Nearly 50 years after their conviction, The Court of Appeal has cleared Courtney Harriot, Paul Green and Cleveland Davidson. Two other members of the Stockwell Six who were originally sentenced, Texo Joseph Johnson and Ronald De'Souza, have been untraceable so far. Their convictions still stand. The sixth member of the group, Everet Mullins, was acquitted during the original trial.

The overturning of these sentences comes after the revelation that D.S. Derek Ridgewell was corrupt and ruined the lives of many young Black men in the 1970’s by framing them for crimes they did not commit. He was finally caught in 1980, where it was found that, aside from framing innocent men, he had colluded with criminals to steal and sell the equivalent of £4 million in police goods. He was imprisoned for 7 years for conspiracy to rob, but died in his cell in 1982.

Another high-profile case led by Derek Ridgewell that was recently overturned is that of the Oval Four. Four young men, Winston Trew, Sterling Christie, George Griffiths and Constantine “Omar” Boucher were accused by Ridgewell of attempted theft and assaulting police. Three of the group, Trew, Christie and Griffiths, had their sentences overturned on Dec. 5, 2019, maybe 50 years after being branded criminals. The fourth member, Boucher, has still not been tracked down, so his sentence still stands.

The case that should have brought Ridgewell’s cheming to an end was that of the Tottenham Court Two in 1973. The two men that had been arrested were devout Jesuits (a Catholic missionary order) studying at the University of Oxford, and the judge halted the trial, believing the men to be innocent, saying “I find it terrible that here in London people using public transport should be pounced upon by police officers without a word”. Far from this realisation of Ridgewell’s underhanded tactics being an end to his reign of terror on the young black men of London, however, the Detective Sergeant was just moved to the mail theft department.

In his new department, Derek Ridgewell had found the perfect opportunity to team up with a group of criminals and steal mail bags, whilst arresting another young man, Stephen Simmons, for that very crime. Simmons’ sentence was referred for appeal in 2017, and was finally overturned in 2018, the first of Ridgewell’s victims to see real justice for what had been done to them.

Detective Sergeant Derek Ridgewell. Photo by Mirrorpix

The corruption of Derek Ridgewell is not unique for police officers in the U.K., nor in the rest of the world, and it has a massive impact on the lives, not only of the victims themselves, but also on their friends and family, who have to live with the brand of a criminal until their sentence is overturned, which for many never happens. Hopefully this recent string of appeals have started us on the path to right many more wrongs, and finally bring justice to all victims of corruption.