Derek Ridgewell

Derek Arnold Ridgewell (9 May 1945 – 31 December 1982) was an officer in the British Transport Police (BTP) who was involved in a series of arrests, trials and imprisonments in which it was later found that he had framed innocent people.

Early life Derek Ridgewell was born on 9 May 1945 in King's Park, Glasgow, the son of a civil engineer and a housewife. When he was seven, his family moved to Bromley in southeast London. In 1964, at age 19, he joined the BTP. In 1966, he was transferred to its Criminal Investigation Department (CID) at the Bricklayers Arms goods depot in South London, where he worked as a dog handler. In 1968, Ridgewell was transferred to the BTP Headquarters CID, where his manager was Detective Inspector Maurice Woodman, who had also worked at the Bricklayers’ Arms depot and was best man at Ridgewell’s wedding. In 1971, Ridgewell was promoted to Detective Sergeant and posted to Baker Street. Here, he established a new ‘anti-mugging squad’.

Wrongful arrests and wrongful convictions Ridgewell and his squad worked in plain clothes. His customary behaviour was to confront young (usually black) men and accuse them of robbing people. If they resisted arrest, he would assault them. He then made up false confessions and testified against them.

Waterloo Four Ridgewell and his team first employed his methods against four black men on a tube train in Waterloo station. In late 1971, they were arrested and charged with loitering with intent to commit an arrestable offence, and signed confessions. One of the defendants stated that he put his name to the confession because he feared being assaulted. The defendants, and the girlfriend of one of them who had been traveling on the same train, said that the police's account had been fabricated. In February 1972, the charges were dismissed by a magistrate, who sharply criticized Ridgewell's evidence. The confessions were sent to BTP headquarters so it could investigate the defendants’ allegation that the confessions had been obtained through violence.

In 2021, the case was referred by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) to the Court of Appeal, and the convictions of Green, Harriott, Davison and Johnson, were overturned. It took some time to located De Souza; his conviction was overturned in July 2025.

Oval Four

On March 16, 1972, Winston Trew, Sterling Christie, George Griffiths and Constantine "Omar" Boucher, were arrested by Ridgewell's team. The men were members of the Fasimbas, a South London black political organisation. The prosecution's case was that police "saw the four accused hanging around and it was clear that they intended to pick the pockets of passengers". The four men initially believed they were being mugged, as the officers were in plain clothes and did not identify themselves as police. They were held overnight and said that they were beaten and forced to sign confessions to a series of thefts. The judge directed the jury to consider carefully whether "these statements are really fiction made up by Detective Sergeant Ridgewell" and he instructed the jury not to give verdicts on the charge of conspiracy to rob and to steal. The charges that they had supposedly confessed to, relating to a series of thefts of handbags and purses around markets and Tube stations in Central London, were not sustained. The youngest was sentenced to borstal, the other three to two years in prison. In 2021, the members of the Oval Four received a formal apology from the BTP.

Tottenham Court Road Two In mid-1972, at Tottenham Court Road tube station, Ridgewell arrested two young black Rhodesian men, Jesuits on their way to a social work course at Oxford University. At their trial in January 1973, the judge found Ridgewell's testimony to be so outlandish that he halted the trial. It also emerged in court that Ridgewell had been responsible for several cases in which young black men were falsely accused of "mugging" on the London Underground.

Saliah Mehmet and Basil Peterkin In November 1975, Ridgewell led an operation that resulted in twelve employees at the Bricklayers’ Arms depot being charged with conspiracy to steal. They were accused of ‘relabelling’ parcels and selling the contents. Again, there were complaints that Ridgewell's squad had forced confessions. A 1977 article in the BTP Journal article, likely written by Ridgewell, said that the shift the men worked on was a mix "of Nigerians and Turks. Normally the two minority groups operate a strict race barrier between themselves, but these worked closely together. DS Ridgewell shrewdly reasoned that it was a common criminal purpose rather than the pious hopes of the Race Relations Board that caused them to overcome their prejudices."

In 2021, the BTP said that they had searched for potentially wrongful convictions linked to Ridgewell, but did not submit this case to the CCRC. The families of Basil Peterkin and Saliah Mehmet (who had been a police officer in his native Cyprus) called for the law to be changed so that all cases linked to corrupt officers are reviewed.

Conviction In May 1978, Ridgewell was arrested after a tip-off from one of the men who had helped him sell the items he had stolen, using the same alleged method as the Bricklayers' Arms men. On January 22, 1980, the officers who had prosecuted the depot workers – Ridgewell, DC Douglas Ellis and DC Alan Keeling – were sentenced at the Old Bailey for conspiracy to steal goods valued at £364,000, the approximate quantity was 60 van-loads of parcels. Ridgewell, it was found, kept the proceeds in a safety deposit box and five bank accounts, including one in Zurich. He was sentenced to seven years, Ellis to six years and Keeling to two years. Maurice Woodman became a Superintendent before retiring; he died in 2013.

The governor of HM Prison Ford asked Ridgewell why he had embarked on a life of crime. His reply was, "I just went bent".

In July 2025, the BTP stated that it is conducting a review of files from the 1970s, looking for Ridgewell's possible partners-in-crime, and for additional victims. A previous review was eight pages long and investigators failed to interrogate retired officers thought to have colluded with Ridgewell. The BTP has stated that it now has "extra resources".