Man with severe learning difficulties has his 1990 conviction for murder quashed
A man with severe learning difficulties who was jailed for life for the murder of a shopkeeper three decades ago after confessing in police interviews, has had his convictions quashed by the court of appeal.
The judgment clearing Oliver Campbell, 54, of conspiracy to rob and murder ends one of the longest miscarriages of justice in British criminal history, and will throw a new focus on past policing failures and the current approach of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC).
Campbell said: “The fight for justice is finally over after nearly 34 years. I can start my life an innocent man.”
Campbell, who suffered a severe brain injury as a baby, was convicted at the age of 21 at the Old Bailey in 1991 of the murder of a London off-licence keeper, Baldev Hoondle, after confessing during the 11th of 14 police interviews, some of which were carried out without a solicitor.
The court of appeal heard from expert witnesses that Campbell had an IQ of 73 and scored “abnormally high” for acquiescence, with an “extreme tendency to just, when in doubt, say yes”.
His barrister, Michael Birnbaum KC, told the court police had “badgered and bullied” him into giving a false confession.
Although the judges said they had not seen evidence of police bullying, an expert witness who gave evidence at Campbell’s original trial concluded on reviewing the case that he had not properly understood
the suspect’s vulnerabilities at the time of the trial or appeal.
Other evidence linking Campbell to the murder had been his recently bought British Knights baseball cap, said by a witness to have been worn by the gunman and found near the scene of the crime, and a friendship with Eric Samuels, a then 26-yearold man who admitted being part of a robbery of the off-licence on Lower Clapton Road in Hackney, east London, at 10.30pm on 22 July 1990.
But Samuels, who was subsequently jailed for five years for robbery but not murder, named a different man, known only as Harvey, as his accomplice in a statement to police.
Campbell had bought a British Knights cap eight days before the murder but had given it away soon after, according to a witness, and there were hair samples in the cap that did not belong to Campbell or Samuels. The gunman was also said to be right-handed, while Campbell is left-handed.
Hoondle’s son, Hardip, was in the off-licence when his father was shot in the head, and gave a description of the gunman, who he said had been wearing a British Knights cap.
He did not pick out Campbell in an identity parade, and a second witness outside the shop gave an estimate of the height of the wearer of the cap as several inches shorter than Campbell’s 1.90 metres (6ft 2in).
Lord Justice Holroyde, sitting with Mr Justice Bourne and Mrs Justice Stacey, ruled that statements from Samuels, who has since died, which exonerated Campbell were now admissible as evidence, but that the greatest weight in their judgment was given to the risk that the confessions to police had been false.
Glyn Maddocks KC, who has represented Campbell for more than two decades, broke the news to his client of the court of appeal’s decision at 10.30am yesterday as the judgment was published.
“There was a lot of whooping and excitement from all his supporters around him, yeah,” he said. “So he was absolutely thrilled. It’s been a hell of a journey for him.”
Campbell spent 11 years in prison before being released on licence in 2002. The CCRC previously reviewed his case after an application in 1999 but made a decision not to refer it to the court of appeal in 2005.
The CCRC finally referred the case to the court of appeal in November 2022 on the grounds of “modern standards of fairness” and a change in expert opinion.
The Metropolitan police said they would review the full judgment.
A Crown Prosecution Service spokesperson said: “The court of appeal rejected 17 grounds of appeal and these convictions were only quashed on the basis of new evidence providing more information about Oliver Campbell’s mental state when he confessed to murder. We respect the judgment of the court.”
‘The fight for justice is finally over after nearly 34 years. I can start my life an innocent man’
Oliver Campbell Reacting to the judgment