'I tended my dad's broken body after he fell victim to UK's most corrupt cop'
The son of a man jailed and abused by Britain's most corrupt cop has told how he was haunted by the memory of tending to his father's broken body.
In a searingly brutal account, Errol Campbell, 64, revealed his father, Errol Sr, was forced to flee the UK for America after he was stitched-up by crooked British Transport Police Det Sgt Derek Ridgewell. The Court of Appeal posthumously cleared Mr Campbell Sr last week after hearing he was the 13th victim of racist Ridgewell's dishonesty during the 1970s.
And today the Mirror can reveal Errol Jr's memories of his father's trauma as he told how the stigma of the conviction forced him from the UK. Errol Jr said his father turned to alcohol, saying: "He was a ruined man." Dad-of-four Mr Campbell Sr came to the UK from Barbados as part of the Windrush generation and began working for British Rail. He married his wife, seamstress Lucy Henrietta Daley after she arrived from Jamaica.
Mr Campbell Sr worked as a supervisor and would cycle to the Bricklayers Arms Depot - the same location from which bent Ridgewell stole property worth £364,000. In court documents, Errol Jr said he was just 14 years old when cops stormed his home and took his father away for questioning. When he returned Errol Jr said - as the oldest son - he was tasked with applying oil to bruises all over his father's body.
Errol Jr, who said his father "enjoyed" his job and the family travelled the UK using a discounted card, said: "When I was around 14 years old I remember the police coming to the house more than once to speak to my father. The first time they came to the house they took him away. When he came back he had bruises on him where he said the police had beaten him.
"Some on his face, his stomach and his back. As his eldest son, my mother gave me oil to put on his bruises and I helped bathe his back. I have never forgotten that. The police came again and took him away."
Ridgewell is said to have stitched-up at least 13 innocent men in a racist campaign of corruption during the 1970s. The officer, who died in jail aged 37, made millions with gangs after framing mostly Black victims in London, including the Stockwell Six and Oval Four.
In 1977 Mr Campbell Sr was sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment and a further six months after being convicted of conspiracy to steal from the depot where he worked. He always denied his guilt and claimed he was the victim of racist officers but he went to his grave in 2004 after battling larynx cancer, aged 81, without clearing his name. Lucy died three years later in 2007.
Last week the Court of Appeal posthumously cleared Mr Campbell Sr after his family fought to overturn his conviction. Errol Jr, 64, said: "He always said he was completely innocent of the offences. I remember him saying this before his trial and throughout the rest his life."
Overturning his conviction, Lord Justice Holroyde said that it was with "regret" that the court could not undo Mr Campbell's suffering. He added: 'We can however, and do, allow the appeal brought on his behalf, and quash his conviction. We hope that will at least bring some comfort to Mr Campbell's family who survive.'
He added: "After he came out of prison my father went to America, to get away from his experience. I did not see him for years. I think he left England for up to six years. He took up heavy drinking, and had a drinking problem for the rest of his life. He was a ruined man. The relationship with my mother was not a good relationship from after the time he went into prison. He died in October 2004, of cancer of larynx. My mother died in 2007."
Last week Ronald De Souza, who was part of the group dubbed the Stockwell Six, was also cleared. He just 17 when he was arrested by Det Sgt Ridgewell in 1972. Along with his pals he was accused of trying to rob Ridgewell on a South London Tube train and were jailed despite saying police lied, were violent and made threats.
Ridgewell also arrested the Oval Four in 1972 for stealing handbags. They were each jailed for eight months but their convictions were overturned in 2019 and 2020. Basil Peterkin and Saliah Mehmet were jailed in 1977 – framed by Ridgewell over a theft from a depot he later admitted stealing £364,000 from. Both died before their convictions were overturned last year [2024].
The BTP were criticised for failing to sack Ridgewell in 1973 when a series of prosecutions were dismissed over allegations of violence and corruption. He was moved to probing mailbag theft and 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. Ridgewell was caught in 1978 and jailed for seven years for conspiracy to rob in 1980.
When the governor of Ford prison in West Sussex asked Ridgewell why he had turned to crime, he is said to have replied: 'I just went bent.' Ridgewell died in his cell of a heart attack in 1982. Last week it emerged the BTP had launched a fresh probe into his crimes after the Mirror revealed a "flawed" inquiry into his crimes stretched to just nine pages.
Following last week's hearings, Mr Foot, who represented Errol Campbell Jr at the Court of Appeal hearing which cleared his father's name, said: "When Ridgewell was convicted, nothing happened to his cases. We are calling for a change in the law that, when a police officer goes to prison, there is an automatic review of their cases to look for miscarriages of justice.
"If that had happened, that would have saved more than 45 years of misery for the Campbell family." He added: "We are talking to the justice select committee [and] junior minister, and we believe it is something that could be put into Hillsborough Law [requiring public servants to tell the truth] as a very simple reform that could stop this sort of thing ever happening again."
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