EXCLUSIVE: Oval Four victim Winston Trew today demanded a change in legislation which would see the automatic reviews of cases involving police officers later found to have engaged in serious misconduct
A man who was the innocent victim of one of Britain’s worst miscarriages of justice aims to fulfil a 52-year quest to end police corruption.
When Black Power campaigners supporting Winston Trew attended a rally in 1974 in a bid to clear his name, he was unable to go.
He was locked up in Wormwood Scrubs prison. Mr Trew, then 22, was one of four black men – known as the Oval Four – who wrongly spent time behind bars after being framed by crooked Det Sgt Derek Ridgewell, a British Transport Police officer.
Next month Mr Trew returns to Lambeth Town Hall, where the 1974 Cause For Concern protest was held, to show solidarity with those he says are: “Victims of police muggers.” He will take to the stage on September 10 to launch a campaign for the government to introduce Trew’s Law, legislation that would trigger reviews of cases involving police officers later found to have engaged in serious misconduct.
Mr Trew, now 76, spent more than 40 years trying to overturn his conviction and says it has blighted his life. But he hopes his legacy will help others who were wrongfully convicted on the word of corrupt officers.
He said: “I don’t want anyone to go through what I went through. Even if you’re innocent, you have to prove you’re innocent. At the time I was arrested I was a member of a Black Power organisation called the Fasimbas. I was in prison but they organised the rally with the Black Panther Movement and other organisations. Its aim was to expose Ridgewell for the rotten fella he was.
“I couldn’t attend but now I can stand in the same place and try to end miscarriages of justice caused by corruption. It feels like fulfilling history.”
Mr Trew was arrested with three other black men at Oval Tube station in South London accused of stealing handbags.
He maintained his innocence and said he was fitted up by DS Ridgewell, who later died in prison from a heart attack at 37.
He is thought to have framed dozens of innocent men in a racist campaign of corruption in the 1970s.