Oval Four

rdf:langString Oval Four

rdf:langString The Oval Four are four men—Winston Trew, Sterling Christie, George Griffiths and Constantine "Omar" Boucher—who were arrested by police at Oval tube station in March 1972 supposedly on suspicion of stealing passenger's handbags. The four were held overnight, and their trial eventually lasted five weeks. They were all found guilty of assaulting police officers and attempted theft in November 1972 and received sentences of two years in prison. Following an appeal led by John Platts-Mills, QC, their sentences were later reduced to eight months, although the convictions themselves were upheld, and Lord Justice Haymes commented that the reduction did not ameliorate the seriousness of their crimes. Christie was also convicted of stealing a female police officer's handbag. All four men subsequently appealed, which failed. The officer responsible for their arrest, who was also the chief prosecution witness at their subsequent trial—Detective Sergeant Derek Ridgewell of the British Transport Police—was later tried and convicted for conspiracy of theft from the Royal Mail in 1980, where he received a seven-year sentence but died in Ford Prison two years later. The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) argues that Ridgewell—in charge of a group of undercover officers known as the Northern Line "Mugging Squad"— was known to confront young black men at tube stations, accuse them of theft, and then arrest them for resisting arrest, which he would back up with fictional, incriminatory remarks from the prisoner. If they resisted, a charge of assaulting a police officer was added to the charge sheet. This led to a number of "high-profile" cases, which began attracting attention after a judge threw out Ridgewell's case against two Jesuit students studying at Oxford University. The judge, summed up: "I find it terrible that, here in London, people using public transport should be pounced upon by police officers without a word." Following the case's collapse, Ridgwell was transferred to a unit investigating the theft of mail bags; however, he took the opportunity while there to join forces with thieves who would steal the bags and split the profits with Ridgewell.