When 200IQ Suspects Destroy Corrupt Cops
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police are often met with all kinds of dangerous people but what happens when instead they have to face 200 IQ suspects who know the law better than they do when’s the last time we smoked weed I LW zero so now you’re trying to think I smoked weed that’s what’s going on you can’t do that man you really can’t do that absolutely I can is he allowed to do that here’s how these corrupt detectives reacted when they were outsmarted by suspects starting with police chief Michael Chini on September 17th 2022 the chief of police decided to
threaten the wrong kids Chini had started harassing these kids for disturbing the peas but Parker whan and Travis krenn were only playing around and they were about to show the chief that they knew the law disturbing the pieace both of them squealing their wheels out he’s talking they come here they hit the cone they’re messing around here around this new monument I’d had enough what the chief did next was illegal and Travis knew it get out of here I didn’t do not yeah you again what I do go what I do go is that battery
get out of here it’s disturbing the peace you hit me because of disturbing the yeah it’s a crime you need to go you just committed battery no yes you hit me with a flashlight that’s bad get out of here how is that right Crim told his friend to call the police but Chini pulled out his badge and said he was a cop trying to intimidate them but that didn’t work they knew Chini was the one who committed battery and they refused to leave until the police came Chini claims that his badge allowed him to assault
anyone he wanted to but the teens didn’t buy his lies battery right M call the cops yep that’s right you call the cops you just committed battery chief of police that doesn’t work that way dude you’re going to tell me the law what you big some legal scholar on the Supreme Court no what are we doing police you can’t hit me withl disturb the peace what’s the first amendment you hit me with a flashlight you don’t have a right to disturb the peace flashlight bro what are you talking about you won’t believe what Chini did
next assault me you want make out I’ll make out what you right now I sweep both ways bro go ahead assault me he ran out of options so getting the boys to attack him was his next plan that way he’d have something to show the police but the teens knew better than that going to touch you I’m not going to touch you I know get out of his face I know better bro hey send a unit down here I’ve got three holigans that need to go huligan you hit me with the flashlight thankfully they recorded
the entire encounter and when the other officers arrived the chief was suddenly not so brave 5 minutes or so of the screeching tires from the birds you know and the hooting and hollering down here so I go out onto my balcony and I look down and they’re just uh they’re driving in the the guy in the long hair intentionally smashes drives his scooter into the barricade and I go hey cut it out cut your [ __ ] so up inment um I’m up in my apartment I forget what he says at me I can do
whatever I want I go you need to get out of here something to that effect and uh he hit the barrel or the bar get the barrel right there the mid Barrel open the door tell him to leave get out of here then I approach I walk across little Plaza here to the curb area he walks towards me and uh the confrontation begins did he when you were upstairs did he tell you that he was going to kick your something with that yeah he he said that yeah Chini said he was off duty at home
when he heard the two boys destroying property he had told them to leave but when one of them threatened him he decided to run downstairs and deal with them himself but his side of the story was different from what had actually happened I felt that he was hostile towards me so I did how I was taught back in the day is a pectoral large muscle mass Jam right with your hand with my FL out of my flashlight what happened then uh he got angry obviously and uh accused me of assaulting him calling me various names
such as baldheaded did he know you were a police officer I did identify myself showed him my badge prior to this altercation um I may have when I was walking up he challenged me to fight and dared me to come down okay I came down he stood off on me and I did a pectoral jab with my flashlight okay okay okay thankfully the teens could share their side of the story too and they told the truth what’s going on so we were just riding around on bir burn scooters you know like teenagers do and then
he came up here I’m 19 okay and he hit the cone right here and knocked it overid one yeah and knocked it over and then he started yelling and he threatened him first so he was def he was defending himself like against him how did he threaten him I don’t remember exactly what he said okay but he was he antagonized him so he was defending himself Travis was standing right there didn’t say a single word and like on the road and he came up and hit him I don’t know if it was like in the
chest of the rib cage but he hit him with the flashlight and then started shining it in his eyes I was right you know how like when you press to break the back wheel walks up and it makes a squeaking noise right okay and you can drift when you do that it’s kind of fun right I get it’s kind of late and stuff right but he’s up there he goes hey big shot you want to go right cuz I said he said watch you keep it down I said I’m not doing nothing wrong he goes
hey big CH you want to go go right and I stood right here I said what’s up he walks up to me and like I’m not going to hit you I promise he goes like that and Jabs me like right here in the ribs with the flashlight and then he said he felt threatened my hands were at my sides I don’t know I didn’t swing at him I didn’t pick up what did you do when he walked down I just stood there so he hits you in the stomach with the flashlight like the rib cage
not the stomach bro of course shini wanted the two guys to be charged for what happened I’ll cut a supplement to charg is right here but instead he was the one who ended up getting charges Chini was charged with assault and battery and is no longer Bas City’s public safety director or chief of police this next officer was determined to charge his suspect for doing nothing wrong you ready yep okay you can relax um so I’m going to read your Miranda okay when right now you have the right to remain silent anything you say can
will be used against you in a court of law on August 28th 20 22 Tav galanakis was pulled over by police officer Nathan Winters for having his bright lights on and even though galanakis had a perfect excuse for it the officer didn’t care hi there how you doing sir good how are you good my name is officer wers with the Newton Police Department the reason I pulled you over is cuz you have your bright lights on yeah I have a I have a headlight out so I just get my brights on okay well that’s not
legal oh it isn’t no yeah I turn when a car when a car comes by I turn them off but like well you didn’t with me oh you weren’t close enough though you were like yeah you were wild has to be within 500 ft oh my bad I’m sorry and you’re not supposed to have your brights on in the city limit the officer started questioning procedure and asked for his license and registration but some of his questions were a little bizarre you got your license registration insurance with you yeah I got you is this your
car yeah okay where you headed back home where’s Home do you new to town or something no you don’t have anything on you no bombs guns drugs no bombs or no drugs okay let’s go back here the officer noticed tav’s movements in the car and the smell of alcohol on him so he jumped to the conclusion that he had been drinking although Tav insisted that he was sober officer Winters didn’t believe him so the boy requested a breathalyzer test how much have you had to drink tonight none what do you mean none I had nothing
to drink okay why would you uh why would your eyes be watery and bloodshot but Winters didn’t want to give him the easy way out I’ve had nothing to drink okay so your movements in the car with you fumbling over the registration yep um kind of say otherwise all right and so does the odor of alcohol coming from your person great let’s let’s do a test then we we’ll get to the test I can’t wait the teen asked for the test again because he was sure of himself he even made a video mocking the situation
and the officer so what happens if you know nothing pops up do you get trouble no why would I get in trouble because you think I’m drinking but I’m not drinking can I record it yeah absolutely what’s your name my name is Officer Winters so officer Winters thinks I’m drinking tonight we’re about to do a test he’s going to find out I had nothing to drink he’s going to look stupid ain’t that right I’ve had nothing to drink zero and we’re about to find out Winters took Tav through a bunch of sobriety tests all of
them except for the breathalyzer all right so I’m going to actually have you stand right here is fine for now I’m going to have you stand with your heels and Toes together with your arms down to your side okay I’m going to check your eyes cool okay what I want you to do is follow my finger with your eyes and your eyes only and do not move your head okay yep do you have any questions nope all right so I want you to put your left foot on the line okay take your right foot put
it in front of your left foot with the heel of your right foot touching the to your left foot just like this okay okay stay in this position until I tell you to begin okay perfect galanakis asked for the test for the third and fourth time but still nothing instead the officer went on with another test come on man it’s too easy let’s do the breath now two for two give me a little blow I Willow Z I will here in a minute okay all right uh couple more tests here okay I want you to
stand with your heels and Toes together with your arms down your side when I say begin I want you to estimate the passing of 30 seconds close your eyes and tilt your head back okay estimate the passing of 30 seconds yes sir and another want you to stand just like you are make a fist rotate your hands facing me and extend both index fingers I would I would record it but like my phone’s at 1% okay rotate your palms just like that I’m going to give you a series of commands Okay the command is going
to be either left or right okay whichever hand I say I want you to bring that hand up touch the tip of your nose with the tip of your finger and bring your hand immediately back down okay he asked for the test one last time blow let’s blow real quick stop doing all these damn tests let’s blow let’s get to business and finally 1 hour into the Stop Winters got the breathalyzer device but the results were not what he had expected you ready yep okay you can relax um so I’m going to read your Miranda
okay the device showed 0.0 yet he started reading ton his Miranda rights before arresting him right now you have the right to remain silent anything you say can will’ll Beed against you in a court of law you have the right to an attorney if you cannot afford woman will be appointed to before questioning okayer officer Winters didn’t show him the results and tried accusing him of smoking weed too but Tav caught on immediately when’s the last time we smoked weed I do not remember that tonight who okay well I was I think it’s tonight I’ve
had no weed tonight 6:30 what why do you think it’s tonight why do you think that’s I blue zero so now you’re trying to think I smoke weed that’s what’s going on you can’t do that man you really can’t do that absolutely I can is he allowed to do that yes he is so I Zer and drugs man that’s what we on I zeros you think I’m on drugs Winters said he had a reason for Galan ais’s arrest but he confessed something different on the phone here’s my situation I stopped this guy for having his
brights on um he’s he fumbles around with his uh registration three four five times he uh um he bombed sobriety he I asked him I said I read Miranda PBT trip z um so he he says he’ll do an evaluation but he’s kind of a smartass would you want to talk to him or all right that’s what we’ll do then okay but I obviously have enough for to charge him with the sobriety so gakis was arrested and brought to the police station where he went through yet another test this time it was a drug test
and of course galanakis had nothing in his system we’re going home tonight okay I don’t think you’re I have no evidence or no information to suggest that you’re under drugs or alcohol thank you so he wanted to have his last words with Winters who tried so hard to get him charged so I just want to know like how does it feel how does it feel for remember I told you when you first pulled me over and you’re like you’re impaired you’re on drugs you drink alcohol turns out I’m not on any of that okay really
dumb decision about you today I’m really disappointed in how you can’t buite your job I based my decision on your field toet tests was it really failed though I was it was pouring outside it was terrible cement and Tav sure had the last laugh but these four officers are even worse and your badge number please I don’t even know why you’re here right now I asked you a direct question do you have your badge number on you I asked you to leave because right now you’re not allow glow to be on our traffic stop on
March 27th 2023 an officer approached a guy claiming he was standing too close to their traffic stop but the guy was at a very considerable distance and he knew it so he asked for her badge number sry can I help you no thank you okay um well this is our traffic stop right now so I’m just going to ask you to thank you he just asked me to leave do you know this person since you’re making contact with me could you identify your name and badge number um I’m officer Alie and your badge number please
I don’t even know why you’re here right now I asked you a direct question do you have your badge number on you I asked you to leave because right now you’re not allowed to be on our traffic stop at first one officer officer Alby tries to dodge the question but the guy insisted on getting it after some back back and forth she finally budges ma if you’re refusing to identify your badge number it might result in a complaint with your department okay I understand that my badge number is 639 thank you very much but I’ve
asked you a question at this time at this time it’s not consensual despite this the officer still demands the person should move further away from the scene but he remains unfazed he stands his ground pointing out his right to be there and was the police activity from a reasonable distance which is protected by legal rules even established by the Supreme Court you have the right to everything we just need you a little further away from the scene do you remember what the uh Supreme Court ruled as far as the distance do you remember what it
was you don’t know well anything that we deem is unsafe okay that’s false have a good day sir okay well I will uh make sure to research that information thank you sir I have the answer by the way just know if you get too close to came hey man they would have arrested me already man have a good one I’m just letting you know have a good one but the situation gets more tense as other officers approach the guy however none of them could intimidate him what’s going on can we help you with anything you
have any business to conduct here right now can I ask you what type of business you’re conducting and can you take your hand out your pocket for me please since you’re uh engaging with me can I get your name in badge number my name is Officer Robinson badge number 659 thank you very much right here behind the vehicles did somebody complain to you sir no I didn’t have a great day sir thank you can you set back behind the vehicles for me is that a lawful request it is a lawful request a aut ofra stuff
what’s your name and your batch number just answer it man I don’t have to but I will because it’s your policy it’s actually not our policy it’s not no it’s not you don’t think it’s professional to identify to people yeah my name is Officer love love Yeah my badge number is right there 619 6 thank you sir this guy knew his rights and there was nothing the cops could do about it so they left before one of them lost their job and make sure we always record the police cuz they don’t like it at all
they don’t like to be seeing bullying others watch what happens when cops get outsmarted by a 15-year-old kid okay okay okay okay I didn’t do anything you just tased me for no reason on September 29th 9 the cops messed with the wrong kid they surrounded the house of Michael franek to arrest him but his son knew constitutional rights a little too well the whole situation started with Michael’s son jack who was riding around on a gas powerered bike annoying The Neighbors in the process the neighbors didn’t appreciate his presence and threatened him so Jack’s father
stepped in and got into an argument with the neighbor allegedly another neighbor called the police claiming that Jack’s father had a weapon hidden in his trousers when police arrived they decided to talk to franek however he declined to answer their question or leave his house he asked for their names and badge numbers but the officers ignored this request the situation quickly escalated when the officers started questioning him about an incident to which he responded that he had no idea what they were talking about can I help you hello are you uh Michael hi uh can
I help you something yeah uh we’re here about a officer Rodriguez uh first name Jim Jim how are you Jim name please sorry badge number what’s that badge number please let’s go ahead and talk about the incident that you had out here a few minutes ago don’t know what you’re talking about okay just step down here for me the officers insisted he stepped down but he refused and this is when it got physical yeah no no hey who who I didn’t do anything you just came into my house without a warant is there any gun
in your back pocket I just want to make sure we’re safe we’re safe okay I’m not coming outside we can we talk right here sure we can jack come here record this come on outside record this come outside Jack record this grab my phone and record this whoa I’m injured cooperate I am cooperating you’re violating my Fourth Amendment right stop outside you’re violating my Fourth Amendment right you guys cannot come in here without the officers forcibly tried to arrest him even though he was unarmed then Michael was suddenly tased and dragged outside the police without
doing anything wrong stop I didn’t do anything you just tased me for no reason deploy stop outside what are you doing stop stop what what am I being deted for outside what am I being detained for just stop resisting I’m not resisting I’m not resisting go take his phone thankfully Jack was recording the entire time even though a cop did try to stop him don’t take his phone don’t take his phone I’m good I’m good I’ve chilled the whole time I haven’t done anything relax I haven’t resisted offic try do talk to you I am
behind my back this is unbelievable no I know this is UN they walk in the house without a search War this is unbelievable ja follow me and record this way follow me and record give us space I’m not give us space okay what’s your space what’s your space Jack Jack record the whole Rec give us does this look like enough space the cops took Jack’s dad and even injured him in the process somewhere back there what am I doing you don’t twist the handcuffs you’re injuring me I’m not resist it’s all been recorded I didn’t
resist I didn’t do it you know see he acknowledged that I didn’t resist Jack have I didn’t resist to stop right I did I didn’t do anything against your instructions you came this guy came into my house without a warrant without any probable cause let me just talk for a second I said I don’t know anything and he tackled me in my house and when Jack tried to talk they didn’t let him they knew he was too smart and he would bring them trouble officer mean you right okay yeah I’m fine no no he can
talk he can talk talk because I was in the situ him no I’m not going to arrest okay then calm down he recorded the whole thing this guy is out of control what’s your bad what’s what’s your name step back look he just touched you can record all you want but you’re stepping back right now don’t touch me stop harassing me we’re just trying I’m videoing this you please get out of my personal space yes you’re you’re not going to you’re not going to interfere with what we’re doing this is my property you’re not going
to interfere with an arrest you can record all you want but you’re not going to get close to move out my personal I’m going to stand right here my personal Square please move I’m going to stand right here please move you’re in my personal space what’s your name yeah I do not need to give you that yeah you do for what reason do you’re invol this I’m involved with this yes but this guy threatened me and C the cops on you and what’s your what’s your badge number what’s your name what’s your badge number badge
number that’s his name 3K 12 Okay now what’s your name I’m not making any statements you’re not making any statements nope okay I have the right to identify you you then you can search up my face and you can search up my record okay their only option was to detain the kid too and threaten him with juvenile court but the officers knew he had zero charges so you were the one driving up and down the street on the motorcycle uh I was on my gas bicycle okay that’s gas powered vehicle you have to have a
driver’s license um no you don’t now when it’s 50 cc and you have a permit for it and once again jack knew his rights after a while the officers found out that Michael did in fact have a concealed carry permit so he was allowed to own a gun as long as he didn’t wave it around and nobody said he did so the cops had nothing on him well if he didn’t threaten anyone with it there’s no I no it was just a concern for to oh no absolutely but I don’t think there’s any reason to
try right a war to get in the house I’m going to arrest him for uh failure to obey a lawful command resisting uh disorderly yeah disorders that’s good cuz it got her attention too the only thing that was left was for the cops to make up a story since there was was no crime obviously this is going to turn into something he’s going to get you on I’m going to do the up on um how the kid was being AAG how I checked his cuffs like his cuffs were tight but he has big wrists you
had click like once or twice in you click him anymore what do you do all right okay anyway you got take him and then what are you going to do resisting disorderly feure to identify and then I’m going to look up me having a handgun in a dispute it might not fly it might fly I don’t know we never found a gun we got the witness statement right but look that up if you want that’s my guess yeah I’ll look it up but they didn’t get away with it officer Rodriguez was charged with five violations
which included using a taser on Michael officer Thor was found guilty of three violations as well both of them were fired from their positions and Michael filed a law suit seeking over a million dollars in compensation this is what happens when anyone is allowed to become a cop
‘I just went bent’: how Britain’s most corrupt cop ruined countless lives
This article is more than 1 year old‘He was put in a position despite everything they knew about him’ … Derek Ridgewell. Photograph: Maurice Kaye/Mirrorpix
How many people did DS Derek Ridgewell fit up? The sheer scale of his depravity, and his targeting of men of colour, is only now becoming clear
By Simon HattenstoneThu 25 Jan 2024 05.00 GMTShare
In the modest-sized court seven at the Royal Courts of Justice in central London, the children of Saliah Mehmet and Basil Peterkin squeeze into the rows of benches alongside journalists, campaigners and friends. It is the morning of 18 January 2024, almost 47 years since their fathers were imprisoned for conspiracy to steal goods from the Bricklayers Arms depot in south London, where they worked. Three years later, in 1980, the officer who arrested them, along with two of his team, was convicted of the same crime, in the same depot, which they policed.
Mehmet and Peterkin – both now dead – always said they were framed. Even now, their families refuse to believe that their fathers will have their convictions quashed until they hear the judge say the words.
Things have come a long way since Mehmet’s wife received a letter out of the blue in September 2022. It had come from the Criminal Cases Review Commission. She was perplexed by it. “The CCRC is an independent body which investigates cases where people may have been wrongfully convicted,” it read. “If the CCRC finds important new evidence or legal argument, we can send the case back to the appeal court.”
The court of appeal, the letter read, “accepted that the new evidence, which related to DS Ridgewell’s own conviction in 1980 for conspiracy to steal from the Bricklayers Arms goods depot, which resulted in a significant prison sentence, meant that the evidence given by DS Ridgewell and his officers at the trials of the Oval Four and Stockwell Six could not be relied on as truthful”.
Gulser Saliah had not heard of the Stockwell Six or the Oval Four, nor DS Derek Ridgewell. But she did know that her husband had been arrested by the British Transport Police (BTP) in the 1970s while working as a porter for British Rail at the Bricklayers Arms. Mehmet and six colleagues were convicted of conspiracy to steal £30,000 worth of goods; the police estimated that, over 18 months, the gang stole goods worth £300,000. Mehmet, who died of Covid in 2021, was jailed for nine months.
He always insisted he was innocent. The conviction ruined his life. What happened to him and his colleagues has chilling echoes of the Post Office scandal, criminalised for something in the workplace that they did not do.
Gulser passed on the letter to her three adult sons – Regu, 52, and 44-year-old twins Arda and Onur. They explained that there was a possibility of clearing Mehmet’s name. But, like her husband, Gulser had lost faith in British justice when he was convicted. She didn’t want anything to do with the police. Nor did she want to dig up ghosts from the past. Eventually, her sons convinced her that this was an opportunity to restore their father’s reputation, albeit posthumously.
It took almost 50 years, but, on 18 January, Mehmet, alongside Peterkin, who died in 1991, were finally vindicated.
This is not simply a story about a horrifying miscarriage of justice. It is also a story about one of the most corrupt officers in British history and the police establishment that allowed him to thrive in his criminality and then protected him. It is about a justice system so indifferent to the fates of the men wrongfully convicted that it did nothing to clear their names for almost 47 years.
As soon as Ridgewell was convicted, the BTP should have examined his arrest record to see if he could have been responsible for innocent people going to jail – especially for the crimes he had committed. But that never happened. In the end, it was only a quirk of fate – one of his victims listening to a radio call-in about miscarriages of justice – that resulted in a series of convictions being overturned on appeal.
Mehmet was a family man. He was born in England, but, like Gulser, he was Turkish Cypriot and had grown up in Cyprus. After their marriage, they had moved to London. His sons say he would have worked 24 hours a day if he could to give his family a good life. He took as much overtime at the Bricklayers Arms as was on offer. It was a stable job and he had been there for eight years. He hoped to be made a manager one day and saw no reason why he couldn’t work for British Rail till he retired on a decent pension. Then, in November 1975, he was arrested by Ridgewell.
Mehmet stood trial at the Old Bailey in April 1977, one of 12 people accused of stealing by re-labelling parcels to direct them to other addresses and then selling on the goods. All but one were employed by British Rail at the Bricklayers Arms, a vast London depot that dealt with between 120,000 and 160,000 parcels a week, of which about two-thirds were mail-order goods.
After a trial lasting nine weeks and two days, Mehmet was convicted of conspiracy to steal, handling stolen goods and two counts of theft. Peterkin was convicted of conspiracy to steal and was also sentenced to nine months.
People wouldn’t believe he was innocent, because nobody goes to prison for nothing, right?
Regu Saliah, Saliah Mehmet’s son
Regu remembers the night the police arrived at the family home. He was six years old. He discovered later that his father was already being held by the police. “I was asleep and I woke up because of the commotion,” he says. “There were two or three police officers rummaging through the house. Mum was upset and cuddling me, telling me there was nothing to worry about.” But there was. Ridgewell was planting stuff at the house while pretending to look for stolen property.
The next time Regu saw his father was in prison. By now, he says, Mehmet seemed very different from the father who took such pride in his appearance. “He looked dishevelled and as if he’d been physically manhandled. He would cry every time we saw him in prison. So yeah …” He trails off, tearful. “I’m still upset now, thinking about it.”
Without Mehmet’s salary, Gulser couldn’t afford to pay the rent. She and Regu found themselves homeless. Friends withdrew from them. “Word went out about what had happened to my father and all of a sudden people started to step back because they thought Dad was a criminal.” The Turkish Cypriot community was conservative and respectful of authority, Regu says. “People wouldn’t believe he was innocent, because nobody goes to prison for nothing, right?”
Over the next few months, he and his mother moved from hostel to hostel. They were hellish, Regu says, and many of the residents were racist. “There were occasions when we got to the bathroom door and they’d put faeces on the door handle, so Mum would have to open the door with a tissue.” Again, he becomes tearful.
The twins were born a year after Mehmet was released. Today, we are at Onur’s house in Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire. All three brothers are now fathers and have done well for themselves. Regu works in IT. The twins achieved identical grades in identical subjects in their GCSEs, went on to become geography teachers and now run a gym franchise. We sit around a table laden with crisps, brownies, cheese and meats as they tell their story. It is all very different from the home they grew up in, where money was scarce and luxuries nonexistent.
Mehmet came out of prison unrecognisable. He had been a confident, sociable man who enjoyed his work, loved to dance and played in goal for a local football team. Now, he was sad, introverted and suspicious of everything – most of all the police. Their mother, a pieceworker who made skirts at home, was much the same. Mehmet struggled to find work after his conviction, so he drove minicabs at all hours.
Arda says his father was broken. He knew that most people believed he was a crook: “We’ve even had comments made by our own family.” One relative described them as being “dragged up, not brought up, because Dad had been to prison”. Mehmet believed he had failed his family. “He found it difficult to accept that he couldn’t give us everything he felt we deserved,” says Arda. “Because he couldn’t get a proper job, he never had enough money. He suffered from depression. He felt he’d let everybody down.” Their father rarely talked about what happened. “I remember asking him about it once and he refused flat out to have a conversation about it,” Onur says.
Bits of the story would emerge when he was upset. “It would come out in an angry way,” Regu says. “It wasn’t a therapeutic coming-out. It was more like: ‘This is what I’ve been through and you’re arguing with me about something trivial.’” Arda adds: “He used to say: ‘They made me out to be a liar, they made a mockery of me.’”
Regu continues: “He had complete mistrust of anybody who wasn’t in our close-knit family. His outlook on the world was just mistrust. Dad became quite reclusive. He didn’t want to speak to anybody or have any friends.”
Regu was not only an older brother to the twins; he was something of a father figure. “Do you boys remember when Dad got robbed and beaten up in his cab?” he asks them. “He got robbed for his takings and they beat him black and blue. Eyes shut, limping around. And he wouldn’t even go to hospital in case they called the police. I was saying to him: ‘Dad, I’m going to call the police, because you’ve been robbed,’ and he wouldn’t let me.” He lived in constant fear of being fitted up again. Or, even worse, his boys being fitted up.
“We had a police community officer who’d come to the school and there was an occasion when we were allowed to bring our bikes in, which was great fun,” Regu says. “They told us how to ride it safely and they said bring your bike at the weekend and PC Thomas will be there and we’ll be able to stamp your postcode on to the frame of your bike in case it gets nicked. I told Dad I wanted to take my bike to get it stamped and he refused. He said: ‘I don’t want you going anywhere near the police. Just look after your bike.’”
Did Mehmet ever recover his trust in people? Regu shakes his head. “No, not in Britain,” he says. “In summer, we’d go out to Cyprus for three or four weeks. He was a different person there – totally relaxed. I guess he felt safe and secure in the environment and the people.” But the anxiety returned as soon as he got back to London.
The boys say the conviction had a huge impact on their lives, too. There was the financial struggle, for starters. “We were poor, right?” Regu says, looking to the twins for confirmation. “Come Christmastime, the kids would be out playing with their new toys, walkie-talkies and all that, and we had none of that.”
There is another thing, Onur says: “We weren’t as confident as we should have been, because we lived in a little bubble that was hidden away from the world. We were overly protected. They didn’t want us to be exposed to the challenges of life.”
While Gulser was astonished to receive the letter from the CCRC suggesting the possibility of an appeal, the boys were less surprised. They hadn’t told her that they had heard of a case similar to Mehmet’s being overturned – that of Stephen Simmons, who had been convicted of stealing mailbags from the Bricklayers Arms in 1975. Simmons was cleared in 2018.
Five years earlier, in 2013, Simmons had called a legal phone-in on LBC radio to ask for advice about his case and was told to try Googling his arresting officer. When he searched for DS Ridgewell of the BTP, he was shocked to discover the officer had been jailed for the identical offence four years after his own conviction. If he hadn’t happened to hear that radio show, it is unlikely he would ever have been cleared – and nor would Ridgewell’s other victims.
After the convictions of three of the Oval Four were overturned in December 2019, thanks in part to Simmons’ case, Lord Burnett, then the head of the judiciary in England and Wales, said: “We would wish only to note our regret that it has taken so long for this injustice to be remedied.” Still, the BTP did not refer the cases of Mehmet and Peterkin to the CCRC.
Regu told his father about Simmons. “I said: ‘Do you remember who arrested you?’ Dad said: ‘Yeah, I remember the bastards.’ I showed him a picture of Ridgewell and said: ‘Is that him?’ He went white as a sheet and said: ‘I don’t want to look at it.’ I tried to say this is a good thing, we could get in touch with people and try to get them to clear your name. He said: ‘They’ll never do it; they’ll probably put me in prison again. I don’t want to talk about it,’ and that was it.”
They never talked about it again. In 2021, Mehmet died, at 77. Gulser received the letter from the CCRC the year after. “This sounds mean, but I remember thinking that the timing was good,” Arda says. “Because if my dad was alive, I don’t think he would have allowed us to go through with it.”
While Mehmet struggled silently with his conviction, Peterkin desperately tried to get his overturned. In January 1978, he told the appeal court why the case against him made no sense. “The railway police searched my house on 16 November 1975 and found nothing. They arrested seven of my workmates on my shift on the same night and charged them. Then, Wednesday night, they asked me to come into their office, searched me and alleged to have found two labels on me. I did not have those labels on me,” he said in his statement.
“The only explanation I can give is that either the police put [them] there or a member of staff put [them] in my jacket while it was hanging in the cloakroom. If I was guilty of conspiracy to steal with these men, why would I be walking around with incriminating evidence on me at work just three days after they had been arrested and my house searched?”
The judges ruled that, as there had been no error in the way that the evidence had been put to the jury, they could not reverse its decision. Peterkin’s appeal was refused.
In 1980, Ridgewell and two other police officers were convicted of the offences for which they had arrested Peterkin and Mehmet. Ridgewell, the more senior officer and the ringleader, was sentenced to seven years; DC Douglas Ellis, who had given four and a half days evidence at Mehmet and Peterkin’s trial, received six years. DC Alan Keeling was sentenced to two years. All three had investigated Mehmet and Peterkin’s case.
Perhaps even more staggering was the fact that Ridgewell was still in a position to fit up innocents while committing robbery. He should have been sacked from the police years before.
The first time Ridgewell came to the public’s attention was as a cocky 20-year-old who had returned from the briefest of stints in the British South Africa police in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, to re-join the police. He told people that he had been working in Rhodesia for eight years. The reality was that he had deserted after three weeks when Rhodesia declared unilateral independence from Britain in November 1965. Desertion was a criminal offence and there was a warrant out for his arrest.
Ridgewell was a charismatic, highly plausible young man – a baby-faced cheeky chappy. He gave an interview to the Guardian in which he emerged as a heroic figure for quitting the Rhodesian police on principle because of its racism. In a letter to his commanding officer, he described the force as “a military organisation designed to suppress the Africans”. He came across as noble, brave and eloquent rather than a crook on the run. The arrest warrant was dropped and he got a job with the BTP.
In 1972, seven years after returning from Rhodesia, Ridgewell was put in charge of a new mugging squad in London. Mugging was on the rise on the underground – and a vastly disproportionate number of young black men were being prosecuted for it. Success for Ridgewell meant arrests. Lots of them. So he ensured this happened.
First, Ridgewell and his team pulled four young black men off a tube train at Waterloo station just before midnight, where other members of his team were waiting. The young men had been on their way to a reggae club. They were charged with loitering with intent to commit an arrestable offence. The men signed confessions, but one later said in court: “I just signed it because I was afraid I would get beaten up, too.” One of the men was with his white girlfriend. The police ignored her and she was left on the train. The girlfriend and the young men later said that the police’s story was fabricated.
A magistrate dismissed the case. Lambeth Community Relations Council lodged a complaint and the BTP promised an inquiry, but later said: “No evidence was forthcoming from any witness to support any allegation against any person.”
Next, six young black men were arrested while travelling from Stockwell station in south London. On this occasion, Ridgewell said he followed a group of young black men into a tube carriage, while placing members of his team in the carriages behind and in front. All the officers were plainclothes. Ridgewell claimed the men attempted to rob him before he fought back and arrested them. He claimed one man, Courtney Harriot, produced a knife, which Ridgewell knocked out of his hand with his truncheon.
All the defendants, who became known as the Stockwell Six, pleaded not guilty and testified that the alleged attempted robbery had never happened. They said that the officers had threatened them, been violent and put words in their mouths. Five of the six were convicted; Harriot was sentenced to three years in prison.
A month later, four young black men were arrested by Ridgewell and his team at Oval station on suspicion of stealing passengers’ handbags. The men were members of a Black Power organisation called Fasimbas and had been returning from a political meeting. The officers were plainclothes and didn’t declare initially that they were police, so the defendants thought they were being mugged. They were then taken to a police station where they signed confessions to a series of thefts. They later alleged that they had been beaten up and the confessions forced out of them.
At the Old Bailey, the men – who became known as the Oval Four – faced 17 charges of “robbing persons undetermined”. There were no witnesses for the prosecution, apart from the arresting officers, and no victims were named in any of the charges.
A white woman, Diana O’Connor, said she had seen the officers start the attacks and had attempted to break it up. She was charged with assault. At the trial, O’Connor gave evidence on behalf of Winston Trew, one of the four. “The boy’s eyes seemed to be coming out of his head and his mouth was open as if he was choking to death … That’s why I intervened to stop it,” she said.
After a five-week trial, all four were found guilty of assaulting the officers, as well as two pickpocketings the police claimed to have seen, although they were acquitted of the other charges to which they had confessed in their statements. They were sentenced to two years in prison, reduced to eight months on appeal.
The same year, two young black men were arrested by Ridgewell at Tottenham Court Road station. Again, the police were plainclothes and didn’t identify themselves. Again, the men were charged with assault of the officers, as well as trying to steal women’s handbags. The pair were Jesuit students from Rhodesia who were studying social work at Oxford. The judge, Gwyn Morris, was so appalled by the police witnesses that he threw out the case before hearing the defence.
“I find it terrifying that here in London people using public transport should be pounced upon by police officers without a word by anyone that they are police officers,” Morris said. “One of these men was set upon without a single word uttered about being arrested … How can any possible reliance be placed on these officers?”
At the trial, Ridgewell was asked by a defending counsel if he was “particularly on the lookout for coloured young men”. Ridgewell replied: “On the Northern line, I would agree with that.”
His notoriety was such that both a 1973 BBC Nationwide documentary and a Sunday Times article referred to a calypso song heard in the pubs around Brixton: “If the muggers don’t get you, Ridgewell will.” But despite the newspapers, the documentary and even a judge showing that Ridgewell was a racist with no qualms about framing innocents, the BTP did nothing. He was neither sacked nor disciplined. He was merely moved into another job.
Before long, he arrived at the Bricklayers Arms, where he stole from British Rail and set up innocent employees to take the blame. Again, there appeared to be a racial element to his fit-ups. Ridgewell said he had suspected the men because “the shift was a mixed one of Nigerians and Turks. Normally, the two minority groups operate a strict race barrier between themselves, but these worked closely together.” An article written for BTP Review in 1977, lauding the investigation, stated: “DS Ridgewell shrewdly reasoned that it was a common criminal purpose rather than the pious hope of the Race Relations Board that caused them to overcome their prejudices.” Peterkin, in fact, was African-Caribbean.
Over 11 months, Ridgewell and his colleagues stole 60 van loads of handpicked goods (although it may well have gone on longer). They were exposed after one of Ridgewell’s non-police accomplices was caught transferring parcels; another was found to be carrying a typewritten list of goods provided by Ridgewell.
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.” But, as we now know, he was bent from the start. Ridgewell died in prison in 1982, at 37, reportedly of a heart attack. But there are rumours that he was killed because he knew too much about corruption at the highest levels in the police.
In 2020, four months after the exoneration of three of the Oval Four, the final member successfully appealed against his conviction. Despite their ordeal, Trew had gone on to be a sociology lecturer at South Bank University in London. He co-wrote a book about Ridgewell (with Graham Satchwell, formerly Britain’s most senior railway detective) called Rot at the Core: The Serious Crimes of a Detective Sergeant. Still, Trew says today, Ridgewell did irreparable damage to his life. “When I came out of prison, I was a very angry man. I had nightmares; I had a stomach ulcer. I hated the world and felt helpless. I was released in July 1973 and I spent all that time till December 2019, when my sentence was overturned, trying to clear my name.”
In July 2021, after three members of the Stockwell Six had their convictions quashed, the deputy chief constable of the BTP, Adrian Hanstock, made a statement confirming that the force had examined all records where Ridgewell was the principal investigating officer and “have not identified any additional matters that we feel should be referred for external review”.
But they had not identified Mehmet or Peterkin – nor the five other men convicted alongside them who have still not had their convictions quashed.
We may never know exactly how many people Ridgewell fitted up in his 15 years as a police officer. What we do know is that there have never been so many convictions overturned – 11 so far – and as many lives torn apart as the result of one corrupt officer.
The hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice is done and dusted in little more than half an hour.
Henry Blaxland KC, representing Mehmet and Peterkin, tells the court a “systemic failure” by the BTP to investigate prosecutions linked to Ridgewell led to “lamentable delays” in clearing their names. The Crown Prosecution Service does not contest the appeal. Blaxland says the “perfectly respectable and entirely innocent” pair were “fitted up” by a “dishonest, corrupt and racist” police officer.
The three judges retire briefly. Mehmet’s sons sit in silence, their bodies rigid with tension. The judges return. Lord Justice Holroyde declares both men innocent. “We cannot turn back the clock,” he says. “But we can, and do, quash the convictions.” Holroyde acknowledges the “considerable force” in Blaxland’s criticism of the BTP that Ridgewell was not sacked before he had the opportunity to wreak havoc on Mehmet and Peterkin’s lives and that his cases were not reviewed in 1980 after Ridgewell’s conviction. He says it is “very unfortunate” that Peterkin and Mehmet “have not lived to learn of their vindication”.
Outside the court, the two families line up for photographs. They hold placards saying “Justice four decades late” and “Right bent cops’ wrongs”.
The Peterkin family tell me they are relieved, exhausted and upset. “Dad was so ashamed that he told my sister Janice and I that he didn’t want our younger brothers to know,” says his daughter Lil. “He didn’t even tell his best friends; he just told them that he was going away for a while.” Basil Jr, who is here today, found out about his father’s conviction only when the family received the letter from the CCRC in 2022.
After Peterkin’s failed appeal in 1978, he served his time and then moved to the US. Do they think that was related to his conviction? “Yes,” they say in chorus. “He wanted to start a new life,” Janice says. “I remember the day he went to prison. He said: ‘Don’t believe anything you read about me in the papers.’”
Matt Foot, the co-director of the miscarriages of justice organisation Appeal, says the law has to change to ensure that something similar can never happen again. “If a police officer is imprisoned, there should be an automatic independent review of their files for wrongful convictions, imposed at sentence,” he says.
Later, he adds: “This is not just about a corrupt, racist copper. It’s about how he was dealt with, how he was protected and harboured by the BTP and allowed to carry on.”
I email the BTP to ask if it would like to apologise for failing to flag the cases of Mehmet and Peterkin. The response, attributed to the BTP’s chief constable, Lucy D’Orsi, reads: “My colleagues and I are profoundly sorry to all those affected by DS Ridgewell’s atrocious actions and the trauma that victims and their families suffered as a result. I would like to reiterate my sincere apology for the trauma caused to the British African community by a corrupt BTP officer, whose misuse of his powers caused harm not only to the innocent young people criminalised, but also to their families and community.” The email mentions the British African community six times. Mehmet was Turkish-Cypriot. Peterkin was African-Caribbean.
Outside court, Regu tells me how dismayed he is that the BTP has not written to the family to offer an apology. I tell him about D’Orsi’s response to my email. Regu is flabbergasted: “Well, that’s telling, isn’t it? They don’t even know who’s involved in this case and who suffered. That’s shocking.”
Although he is pleased his father’s conviction has been quashed, he doesn’t attempt to hide his anger. “My father could have had a completely different life. Ridgewell was put in a position despite everything they knew about him. And less than three years later he was convicted. Somebody should have said: ‘Hold on, this guy has put a lot of people away for the same crime.’ Their actions, and then their inaction, led to a sequence of events that had a devastating impact on Dad, Mum and us. And all of it could have been prevented. I think that it led to Dad’s early death. They could have given Dad his life back.”
If you have had direct experience of issues with DS Ridgewell and wish to get in touch, please email Appeal’s Matt Foot. You can contact the Criminal Cases Review Commission here
