Rot at the Core E-Book

Graham Satchwell

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

In March 1972, four young black men were arrested by a specialist pickpocket squad at Oval Underground Station and charged with theft and assault of police officers. Sentenced to two years in prison, the case seemed straightforward and credible to the judge and jury who convicted them – but these young men were completely innocent, victims of endemic police corruption. The real criminal in this case was the notorious DS Derek Ridgewell, later proven to be heavily involved in organised crime. Graham Satchwell, at one time Britain's most senior railway detective, has worked with Oval Four victim Winston Trew to reveal the rotten culture that not only enabled Ridgewell to operate as he did, but also to subsequently organise major thefts of property worth in excess of £1 million. Winston Trew's case was finally overturned in December 2019, but the far-reaching ramifications of Ridgewell's shocking activities has irreparably damaged many lives and must never be forgotten.

Leseprobe

Praise for Rot at the Core

‘A remarkable book in so many ways. A victim of one of our most shocking miscarriage of justice cases and a former detective superintendent have combined to tell a fascinating tale. Should be read by anyone interested in the criminal justice system - or anyone interested in an extraordinary tale of our times.’

Duncan Campbell, crime journalist and author

‘Fascinating story of how a crooked detective and his cronies, lined their pockets, corrupted the criminal justice system and scarred the lives of innocent men for decades.’

Stewart Tendler, author and former chief crime correspondent, The Times

‘A compulsive read; uncomfortable and jaw dropping.’

Jackie Malton, former Flying Squad, detective chief inspector, scriptwriter and broadcaster

‘I could not put it down … very informative … the realities of police corruption, discrimination and unfairness … a valuable contribution … well informed … thoughtfully expressed.’

Guy Williamson, BEM, QPM, criminal law barrister and former BTP officer

About the Authors

GRAHAM SATCHWELL is a law graduate and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He served in every rank of CID within the British Transport Police (1978–99). During that time he was awarded numerous commendations by crown court judges, chief constables and others. He has been a full-time writer for over ten years. His books for The History Press include Great Train Robbery Confidential and An Inspector Recalls.

WINSTON TREW was wrongly convicted of theft and assault as one of the Oval Four in 1972. His conviction was finally overturned in December 2019. He holds a MSc in Policy Studies and has previously published a personal memoir, Black for a Cause.

‘Enthralling … By shining the light of truth, they have exposed the facts and enhanced justice from which others will learn and society will undoubtably benefit … an interesting and very readable account … victims of miscarriages of justice, the Police Service and the wider public owe gratitude to the authors.’

Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate, former Chief Superintendent and National President of the Police Superintendent’s Association of England & Wales.

‘Books about miscarriages of justice are essential reading for defence lawyers to keep us up to the mark. This is one that should be read.’

Anthony Edwards, criminal lawyer, visiting professor at Queen Mary University of London and member of the editorial board of Blackstone’s ‘Criminal Practice.’

First published 2021

This paperback edition first published 2022

The History Press

97 St George’s Place, Cheltenham,

Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

© Graham Satchwell and Winston Trew, 2021, 2022

The right of Graham Satchwell and Winston Trew to be identified as the Authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 75099 768 3

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ Books Limited, Padstow, Cornwall.

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

Contents

Part 1 by Graham Satchwell

Preface by Professor Anthony Edwards

Acknowledgements

Foreword by Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate

Introduction

Chapter 1     Dipping

Chapter 2     Who was Detective Sergeant Ridgewell?

Chapter 3     Ridgewell Re-joins the BTP

Chapter 4     Who was Winston Trew?

Chapter 5     Running the Dip Squad

Chapter 6     DS Ridgewell – Force Headquarters CID

Chapter 7     Bricklayers Arms Depot

Chapter 8     Ridgewell’s Fall

Chapter 9     Forty Years Later and Still Suffering

Chapter 10     The Breakthrough

Chapter 11     Ridgewell’s Will

Chapter 12     Pressure for Results and Permitted Corruption

Chapter 13     The Chief Constable’s Responsibility

Postscript

Part 2 by Winston Trew

Introduction Son of a Police Sergeant

Chapter 1     Crisis Followed Crisis

Chapter 2     Leaving School, Finding a Job

Chapter 3     Joining the Fasimbas, Meeting Ridgewell

Chapter 4     Camberwell Magistrates’ Court

Chapter 5     Leaving Prison, Finding a Job

Chapter 6     An Overview of Ridgewell’s Five Cases

Chapter 7     Ridgewell’s Mistakes

Chapter 8     Diary of Significant Events

Chapter 9     Reflections on My Long Journey

Part 1

by Graham Satchwell

‘No Enemies’

By Charles Mackay (English Chartist poet, 1814–89)

YOU have no enemies, you say?

Alas! my friend, the boast is poor;

He who has mingled in the fray

Of duty, that the brave endure,

Must have made foes! If you have none,

Small is the work that you have done.

You’ve hit no traitor on the hip,

You’ve dashed no cup from perjured lip,

You’ve never turned the wrong to right,

You’ve been a coward in the fight.

Preface by ProfessorAnthony Edwards

When in practice, I tried to read regularly a book about an acknowledged miscarriage of justice. I hoped to keep myself up to the mark.

While there was always a primary cause – Derek Ridgewell in this instance – the criminal justice system should be robust enough to identify the problem. Something will inevitably have been missed by prosecutors, defence lawyers, or the courts.

Police targets, formal or implied, particularly for arrests, have continued to cause problems and better management tools have been identified. Over the years investigative journalists, the organisation Justice and the Criminal Cases Review Commission have had important parts to play in identifying systemic failures.

Corruption and police dishonesty raise particular issues. Graham Satchwell writes, in his easy and readable style, with extraordinary frankness about these topics, as he did in his autobiography. Such corruption is corrosive. It traps the originally honest officer in a web of dishonest conduct. It misleads the courts and, worst of all, it ruins lives. Once identified by the public it undermines the honest officer as juries cannot be confident in their veracity.

I knew Derek Ridgewell. I must have worked on cases initiated by him. I remember no warning signs. But they should have been there. This book is particularly critical of senior officers for failing to identify and investigate the issues. Satchwell is right. Had a prosecuting solicitor been told that there were cases where Ridgewell’s evidence had been subject to devastating judicial criticism, cases would have been tested more thoroughly, other evidence examined more closely as the defence too would have been told. They in their turn should have been more willing to listen to innocent clients alleging misconduct, as should the judges.

The development of modern technology has removed many opportunities for corruption but it still exists. There is a need for constant vigilance and when things go wrong, the injustice must be acknowledged. I hope this book will assist those so badly affected.

Tony Edwards is one of the most highly respected criminal lawyers of his time. He is a member of the Law Society, sits on the Editorial Board of Blackstone’s ‘Criminal Practice’, is a visiting professor at Queen Mary University of London and has numerous influential publications to his name.

Acknowledgements

My part of this book would have been much less vivid and well informed had it not been for the contributions of many of my former colleagues: constables and detective constables, sergeants and detective sergeants, inspectors and detective inspectors, detective chief inspectors, superintendents and detective superintendents. Most of them were former British Transport Police officers, others served in Essex, the Met and the Regional Crime Squad.

Most of those I approached were prepared to help, a few understandably declined, and one or two simply ignored my request.

When I started research for this book I expected it would be a lone pursuit; I have experienced the silence of good men too often in my policing days to expect anything more. But I have been very pleasantly surprised. What I found remarkable was that the officers who helped me most were those I would have put top of any list of the best operational detectives I ever worked with. That is just my opinion, of course, and it might well simply result from my sharing a certain world view with them.

But it was not only former detectives who contributed. Without the efforts of former PC Ian Oliver, accuracy on dates and postings of the officers concerned would have been impossible. Thanks to Ian’s fastidious care in retaining official records, accuracy has been guaranteed. Another, a former senior officer, who also never served in CID, undertook on my behalf a thorough and fruitful investigation into Ridgewell’s affairs. I am indebted to them both.

I have undertaken to all who helped me not to mention them by name unless by prior agreement, and to quote them truly. They have trusted me with their credibility.

But there is a much better reason for each of them to help me that goes beyond a sense of camaraderie; it is a common desire to see that significant injustices are righted.

Several of those officers made it plain they were fully prepared to ‘go on the record’ by name. But the full consequences of doing so might yet have to be weighed, so I have removed all of their names (though, of course, I have kept all my notes!).

I think those who have helped me are ‘birds of a feather’. It might well be that corrupt officers take solace in the values they share with other corrupt cops. I imagine they must, after all, they are ‘birds of a feather’ too. So, the only acknowledgement I can give to those who have helped me is to say, thank you for your contribution, I think you represent the best of policing.

I also have to thank the British Transport Police History Group. Because of my impatience, my relationship with the group has ended (I nagged them too often and too hard and they booted me out!). But despite that, it is right for me to point out that Winston Trew would never have had the evidence to put before the Appeal Court if the group had not worked quietly for years safeguarding the documentary history of the Force.

There are only a few people whose help can be openly acknowledged, but one person I can publicly thank is my friend, John Tidy. John helped a great deal with public record research and general advice. This is the second book he has helped me with and I am indebted to him.

Another is a very well-known and widely respected lawyer called Tony Edwards. Tony was at the helm of the top criminal law firm TV Edwards for generations and has recently retired. His commitment to justice has not.

Foreword byLord Mackenzieof Framwellgate

This is a frank, human account of the descent into crime and death of a detective. But it is more than that; it is a unique insight into the realities of certain aspects of policing. It is about British Transport Police officers, but I think it could just as easily be about officers in police forces in this country.

It has been written to expose a dangerous rot that existed before and during the 1970s and ’80s and which it sometimes appears has never been completely removed. It also reflects articles and speeches I have made over the years on this difficult and neglected topic.

I hope this account will result in other wrongly convicted individuals coming forward. But I hope it might also provide a warning to currently serving senior and junior officers alike.

The former should take note that ‘turning a blind eye’ is not always a safe option, though it is often the easy one. Junior officers should read it as a cautionary tale; corruption really is a slippery slope that can easily cause both the truly crooked cop and the simply unwary to fall heavily.

Graham Satchwell would never have looked into this subject had it not been for his co-writer, Winston Trew.

Winston, with equally innocent friends, was the victim of a ‘fit up’ for no other crime than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Had Ridegwell been stopped by his bosses during that period of his obvious and repeated perjury, then the very serious organised stealing that he later orchestrated and participated in, would never have taken place.

Victims of miscarriage of justice, the Police Service and the wider public owe gratitude to the authors.

Introduction

The corrupt officer, Detective Sergeant Derek Ridgewell, suffered the consequences of his acts. I cannot harm him further by alleging he did more than he was punished for. But the same is not true of those officers who worked with him, some of whom were convicted with him.

Other officers were ‘required to resign’ from the job, a few were encouraged to leave before being formally disciplined, or were convicted and punished in lesser ways. They amounted to about a dozen officers in total. Though in truth, if the scale had not frightened the senior officers of the BTP, the number charged and/or disciplined could have been doubled.

But I have named none who were not convicted by a criminal court; it does not seem right to name and shame them publicly now. Even if I have reason to suspect particular individuals of certain crimes, such evidence that I am aware of has not been tested in court. I cannot be judge, jury and ‘executioner’. Besides, the law of libel is alive and well.

One such former officer who I spoke to at length recently seems to have ‘seen the light’ many years since. All the evidence indicates that for many years he has lived a life of regret. He spoke to me freely about his shame. I simply do not feel able to name him here.

It might be that a serving police officer reading this book, or indeed a member of the public, might think there is enough circumstantial evidence within it to warrant a police investigation. I happen to agree. And if so, that road will lead wherever it does. Every factual claim in this book can be proved and every witness referred to anonymously can be identified.

Derek Ridgewell was probably devious and untrustworthy before he joined the Force. As you will see, if he was not, then his transformation occurred remarkably quickly.

But this is not simply the story of a lone ‘bent’ detective. It is closer to one about the birth and growth of a significant criminal gang. That gang actively involved numerous bent police officers and, it seems, gangland criminals, major organised thefts and a conspiracy to commit armed robberies.

In any event, what cannot be doubted is that within a few years of joining the Force, Detective Sergeant Ridgewell, while in the Transport Police’s Pickpocket Squad on the London Underground, went on a long spree of fitting up young black men for theft, robbery and related offences while his bosses looked away.

Over the years that followed, and while vigorously supported by senior officers, Ridgewell took a leading role in committing serious organised crime. By the time of his death, Ridgewell had put himself at the centre of a complex web of organised large-scale thefts involving property worth well in excess of a million pounds (worth more than £4 million today).

When I stas rted to write my contribution to this book, I had in the back of my mind that the worst crime that Ridgewell had committed was organising those thefts. It seemed that subconsciously I had concluded his fitting up of innocent young men was a lesser crime. It took a while for the penny to drop. Isn’t that a terrible admission?

After thirty-one years as a policeman, and then several years more investigating serious international crime, my understanding of the priorities of law enforcement were fundamentally flawed. It took me weeks of thinking about Winston Trew, and the damage done to his life, to realise it was the ‘fit ups’ that caused by far the most harm. Second to that was the corruption of other officers. The theft offences, for which D.S Ridgewell received a long prison sentence, were relatively minor.

If you are in doubt about that conclusion, ask yourself, which would do you greater damage, theft of a large part of your savings, or being wrongfully arrested, falsely charged and unfairly imprisoned, resulting in loss of employment and employment possibilities, isolation from your loved ones, permanent damage to your personal relationships and destruction of your reputation?

But to understand how both sorts of crime could have come about you need to understand a little about the British Transport Police. You need to know some of its history, its environment and the creation of a certain culture.

The British Transport Police has a long history stretching back to the very earliest days of policing. In England the first police forces were created in the late 1820s. At this time the first passenger-carrying railway trains were being introduced. Both innovations were to have massive social effects.

During the 1830s and ’40s most cities, towns and counties of England, Scotland and Wales were without a police force and in those places where constables did exist, their numbers were hopelessly small and their performance usually poor.

During that same period aggressive capitalists who were unconcerned at the massive adverse social effects were quickly extending the early railways. Suddenly, cities, towns and villages that had been isolated and undisturbed, and had never had sight or need of a police officer, were invaded by the largest and most brutal workforce (‘navigators’ who became known as ‘navvies’) ever created.

Thousands of hard-drinking, frequently violent ‘navvies’ subjected local people to theft, drunkenness and barbarity on a scale that created widespread uproar and fear. Thus eventually, Parliament, after numerous appeals from across the country, demanded that those who employed the railway navvies must pay for constables to police them.

The new railways were not universally popular and landowners, chartists and the like, made them the subject of frequent destructive attack. The railway constables were in the front line with no back-up. Thus, in some areas, the railways’ constables were sworn in to act as constables away from the railways. In many towns and county areas they were the only peace officers available to the public, or provided additional numbers to the few constables that already existed.

By late Victorian times, police forces had been introduced across the country and the railways were the means by which virtually all of the population travelled any distance. Passengers included the old and vulnerable, young and vulnerable, female and vulnerable, rich and vulnerable – and those who preyed on them.

Now the railway police were also required to investigate pickpocketing, robbery, sexual offences, mail robberies, thefts of freight, booking office robberies, frauds and so on.

Though county, city and borough police forces had been introduced across the country, often unwillingly and only after being required to do so by statute, they remained largely poorly manned and under-equipped.

Protecting the lines of railway from malicious damage and protecting the travelling public and railway staff from criminal attack were not the only duties of the railways’ police officers. The railways had replaced the canals as the chief means of moving freight across the country, and commerce had continued to grow nationally. Tobacco, wines and spirits, clothing, the Royal Mail, virtually every valuable commodity was being conveyed and stored in railway goods yards. Railway freight quickly became a magnet for both the opportunist thief and organised criminality.

While railway companies have always had an interest in promoting their business environment as free from crime and safe, the reality has always been quite different. Crime on the railways has always been extremely significant.

Right from the outset of policing the railways, two competing interests have been frequently tested. On the one hand, the owners of the railways, having been forced to pay for constables, have been eager (if not determined) to control them. Pushing in the opposite direction, each constable has been required to swear an oath in a formal legal proceeding, to serve the sovereign, the public and the law impartially. That means showing no favour to anyone, railway company boss or otherwise.

This conflict has been tested to breaking point on occasion and the matter has appeared before the highest courts of the land more than once. The answer is always the same; the constables’ first duty is to their oath.

The individual railway companies’ police departments eventually gave way to several regional railway police forces. These became one unified force upon the nationalisation of the railways in the middle of the twentieth century. At this time the Transport Police was one of the largest police forces in Britain.

During the 1970s the BTP was reduced to about 1,800 officers. The rank structure, duties, entry requirements, promotion regulations, training, hours of duty and Force discipline code were on a par with other police forces. Yet the workload, perhaps contrary to public opinion, often far outweighed that of many other forces.

For example, official figures published by the government (in the Wright Report of 1979) compare the workload of the BTP in 1977–78 with the county force of closest comparable size. At this stage the BTP had 1,907 officers and Staffordshire Police 1,992 officers.

The total indictable (more serious) crimes dealt with that year by the BTP amounted to over 72,000, while Staffordshire officers dealt with 32,000. The number of detections by BTP officers for such crimes amounted to nearly 26,000, while in Staffordshire it was 18,000. In addition, the Wright Report clearly recognises the greater difficulty of attending and detecting crime across a national infrastructure.

During the late 1960s and early ’70s, members of the Force were being pushed to achieve better and better results in the midst of having their numbers cut.

While in theory and on paper one unified force had existed for many years, in truth there were three distinct parts: the ‘railway policemen’, the ‘dock coppers’ and the ‘moles’. Most officers would spend their entire service employed as just one of those three. The ‘moles’, of course, were those who served on London Underground.

I remember how during the 1970s and even early ’80s, officers based at the BTP Force Headquarters Communications Centre would moan that anyone who phoned the BTP London Underground divisional headquarters would be greeted with the words, ‘LT Police Headquarters’.

Many of the officers serving on the Underground undoubtedly had no hesitation in showing themselves as distinct and separate from the rest of the Transport Police. That had, in reality, not been the case for decades.

Yet London Transport still separately funded the LT Division. On the positive side, that resulted in LT officers having better equipment, more overtime and greater immediate support from those who supplied their budget. However, it also seems to have given many of the LT officers reason to believe they were not only financially, but operationally, distinct, separate and superior.

Meanwhile, the men and women of other BTP divisions in London invariably saw the ‘moles’ as unprofessional, hurried, arrogant and superficial – ‘cowboys’ was a phrase often heard.

What cannot be doubted is that because men and women of the LT Division of the force saw themselves as having a unique identity, they most definitely held on to a more ‘closed’ culture. That culture demanded that members be fully prepared to exclude non-members in defence of their own.

That was certainly true in the early 1970s and still existed, to some extent, when I left the Force in 1999. What you will see in the pages that follow is how that culture and other factors led to the commission of serious miscarriages of justice and made their subsequent investigation almost impossible.

Those ‘other factors’ include a powerful and continuing pressure to get ‘results’, a longstanding and persistent cavalier attitude towards justice, and a ‘top down’ failure to properly lead and supervise.

One final important point: Ridgewell probably led many cases that resulted in false evidence being submitted to court, and each case should undoubtedly be re-examined. But a successful criminal appeal against conviction does not rest on proving that the officer(s) involved told lies. Instead, it simply rests on the conclusion that the evidence is unreliable and cannot be trusted. It is my opinion that for many Ridgewell cases it is a distinction without a difference. But importantly, it most definitely does not mean that we can conclude that every officer who ever supported Ridgewell in court is a perjurer. It would be a leap in logic and prejudice that Ridgewell himself would be proud of!

Ridgewell was a liar, but even liars sometimes tell the truth.

Every criminal conviction that flowed from a case Ridgewell was involved in should be re-examined (where that is possible). In some, Ridgewell will have been a minor player and the evidence of other police officers will have held more sway. In other cases, forensic evidence and the eyewitness testimony of honest members of the public will have been most significant.

1

Dipping

Pickpocketing, or ‘dipping’, is an established criminal practice that can be traced back to way before the advent of trains, Underground or otherwise. It is a problem that has been encountered in major cities of the world since the birth of civilisation.

From the beginning of the London Underground, the ease of finding potential victims and easy escape, have made it a perennial problem. It seems that prior to the First World War, officers from both the Metropolitan Police and the railway police were specifically engaged to catch pickpockets (and it seems, a number of corruption cases followed).

In any event, the Metropolitan Police set up the Flying Squad in 1919 to counter pickpocketing (and robberies) on the streets of London. Shortly after, the British Transport Police, London Underground division (though working under its own police force title in those days), also set up a dedicated squad to counter the same problem.

By the 1970s, the British Transport Police Pickpocket Squad was more successful in terms of arrest and conviction per officer than its counterpart in the Met. It was, it has been argued, the most successful ‘dip squad’ in the world. The figures spoke for themselves, the squad’s ability to make arrests and gain convictions was second to none.

Before and during the 1960s and early ’70s, skilled pickpockets worked the London Underground. Jim Hussey the Great Train Robber worked as part of such a team and travelled not only across London Underground, but abroad to ply the trade.

These professional villains had learned their trade well. Victims were ‘dipped’ without knowing a thing about it. It might have been an hour before the victim reached for their missing wallet or purse, and by then the ‘dipper’ was miles away.

But gradually others who heard of the potential for easy money, but who could not be bothered to develop the art, imposed a much cruder approach. And when an unskilled attempt to steal a wallet or purse was interrupted by the victim, violence became the first resort of the thief. Thus pickpocketing frequently escalated to robbery.

For the sake of reporting crimes to the Home Office for statistical purposes, pickpocketing, including those that escalated to robbery, bag ‘snatches’ and similar offences were categorised together as ‘Theft from the Person’.

As can be seen from the following figures, these offences grew rapidly during the period.

Published Home Office statistics for England and Wales

1970 – 8,173

1971 – 8,282

1972 – 9,006

1973 – 10,972

1974 – 10,807

1975 – 16,092

1976 – 20,000+

1977 – 24,000+

These figures do not include crimes committed on the London Underground. True to form, the BTP figures are not readily available. But it is true to say that the newspapers of the day were reporting a growth in these crimes on the Underground that outstripped the considerable escalation seen on the streets.

No surprise then that during the 1970s public concern was being voiced at the dangers passengers faced on the Underground. These seemed particularly prevalent in south London and the West End.

Anyone who worked the BTP dip squad in those days, and some are still alive, will tell you that while it was virtually impossible to catch an old-time skilled pickpocket in the act, the new cruder breed of dips (or dippers) were easier to spot. They were usually reported as being men between the age of 16 and 23, and often black.

That comment on skin colour is not made lightly. The reasons why a disproportionate number of those arrested for pickpocketing were black, or if not arrested then described by their victims in that way, is not a straightforward matter. After all, the fact that racism was commonplace in the Police Service of the time would have led to young black people being disproportionately targeted.

Secondly, once that misleading proportion of black youths had been convicted by the courts (on trumped up charges or otherwise) and reported in the newspapers, the public would naturally, perhaps unconsciously, have been more likely to suspect the behaviour of any black youths they encountered. Finally, geography had a part to play. Many pickpocketing offences were reported to have been committed in areas of south London with a relatively high percentage of black residents. This would naturally result in a greater proportion of both victim and offender being non-white than reflected in the national population.

The young dips would work in groups of three to six. Their M.O. was simple; they would arrive at an Underground station, perhaps the Oval (it was a favourite) and look for a victim. They would follow the victim onto a train and, travelling a few yards from one another as if strangers, wait for their victim to attempt to leave at the next station. As the target did so, they would cause some sort of delay and obstruction at the doors. Bodily contact (jostling) would result between the dips and the victim as the latter tried desperately to leave the train before its departure. The theft would occur during the confusion.

Of course, there were modifications and variations. Sometimes tourists would be followed from hotels; sometimes the dips would target cash-wage recipients on a Thursday and Friday evening rush hour. Sometimes the attack would take place on the platform before the victim boarded their train. Sometimes, if it appeared that a wallet or purse was in a passenger’s backpack, the bag would be sliced with a knife on an escalator, or platform.

If the victim were female then ‘pickpocketing’ sometimes became ‘bag snatch’.

2

Who was DetectiveSergeant Ridgewell?

Derek Arnold Ridgewell was born in the King’s Park area of Glasgow on 9 May 1945 and lived there with his mother, father and younger brother. King’s Park is about ten minutes’ drive from the city centre. It comprises a mix of expensive and less expensive housing.

His father, Leonard, was apparently a ‘chief civil engineer’, which might well indicate a connection to the railways where ‘Chief Civil Engineer’ was in fact a department, not a job title. It seems unlikely that Derek Ridgewell’s father was THE chief civil engineer given his occupation later in life (pub landlord).

When Derek was 7 years old, the family moved from Scotland to Bromley in Kent, where he attended the local state school. He won a scholarship to South East London Technical College, which he left at the age of 17 with four ‘O’ levels. After leaving school, he was employed in the Bromley area as a clerk, but he clearly couldn’t settle. He had three employers within eighteen months. Early in 1964, he began work in his parents’ pub, The Warwick, in south-east London.

After less than three months, again unsettled, on 19 May 1964 at the age of 19, 5ft 9in tall, of stocky build, he was sworn in as a probationary constable of the British Transport Police and posted to Paddington. It seems it didn’t take long for Ridgewell to fall out with his more experienced colleagues.

After Ridgewell moved on, I arrived at Paddington as a sergeant, an ex-dock copper with no experience of policing the railways. I depended on new colleagues – very experienced constables like PC Ted Close, PC Ray Horn, PC ‘Harry the Policeman’ Hebborn, PC Dave Eggins, and others. They were tough, proud, ex-servicemen, the sort of men who were keen to help the public, took their jobs very seriously and didn’t kowtow to anyone.

I treated them all with respect and they reciprocated, and I learned from them. At that stage I had never heard of Ridgewell and knew nothing of what had taken place between him and one or two of them. Yet I have recently heard from two very reliable sources that a significant encounter took place between Ridgewell and PC Close while the latter was on foot patrol one evening. One account says that as PC Close walked through the Paddington Goods Yard he found Ridgewell in the act of stealing parcels.

Ted Close was a bit of a legend. He would have been in his mid-40s at that time (1964–65). He was an excellent sportsman (particularly rugby and cricket). He was about 6ft tall, and very well built, an ex-Welsh Guards rugby prop forward. In truth his shape was a little ‘gorilla’ like. He had long powerful arms and hands that were the size of dinner plates. His manner was direct and his gaze was firm and penetrating. Ted was a keen gardener, a family man and generally even tempered.

But what is supposed to have happened next between Ted and Ridgewell fits perfectly with what I know of Ted’s character and Ridgewell’s. Ted responded to seeing Ridgewell’s dishonesty by simply giving him a good beating.

However, an alternative account of what I take to be the same incident describes things rather differently. According to this, Ted got into conversation with Ridgewell that evening in a hut that the patrolling police officers would use to make a cup of tea. Ridgewell allegedly bragged about a ‘fit up’ he had just completed. In this account too, Ted gave Ridgewell a good hiding. This story goes that the hut was fitted with a large window through which the police officers could watch the goods area of the station while they had a cuppa. Ted apparently threw Ridgewell against the glass and it shattered.

In those days and up to the mid-1970s (at least), it was not unusual for policemen to fight among themselves. You will be disgusted to hear that as a constable, and when I became recruited to the CID, I was party to all that.

I knew Ted well enough to say that his taking the law into his own hands and his meting out corporal punishment for Ridgewell’s crime would have been viewed by Ted as the right and proper alternative to arresting Ridgewell, or reporting him to senior officers (they were never ‘superior’). Ted, I believe, would have found it completely unacceptable to report a fellow police officer, even for committing a criminal offence.

That summer of 1964, Ridgewell attended Police Recruit course 121 (June, July and August) and achieved a respectable 86.2 per cent in his exams. Just over a year later, on 9 October 1965, he resigned from his post at Paddington in order to join the British South Africa Police of Southern Rhodesia. By then, in the short time he had spent with the BTP at Paddington, he had already exposed himself as a rotten apple.