Court clears man with severe learning difficulties of 1990 London murder

Oliver Campbell, 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 Campbell, 54, of conspiracy to rob and murder ends what has been described as 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 the original trial concluded upon reviewing the case that he had not properly understood Campbell’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-year-old 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 1.90m (6ft 3in).

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.

Holroyde wrote that many of the points the defence team made had already been made in the original trial, and that the alleged absurdity of the confessions were “equally inaccurate or absurd at the time of the trial”.

But he added: “The principal reason for our disquiet arises from the fact that the fresh evidence would provide a court with the benefit of much more information than was available at the trial about the appellant’s mental state when he made his confessions.

“As a result of the fresh expert evidence, the whole approach to the case would now be informed by a different and better understanding of relevant factors.

“Even if all the evidence of confessions were admitted, a jury knowing of the fresh evidence would be considering the reliability of those confessions in a materially different context. In those circumstances, we cannot say that the fresh evidence could not reasonably have affected the decision of the jury to convict.

“On that narrow but very important basis, we have concluded that the convictions are unsafe.”

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 on Wednesday 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. He’s kept me going, in a way, through the quiet periods.”

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.

Maddocks said there had not been much difference between the 1999 admission to the CCRC and the latest effort, but that he believed a speech in the House of Commons by the then Labour MP Sandy Martin in 2019 calling for a fresh review had unlocked the case.

“I think one of the reasons they turned it down [in 2005] was that they went to Eric Samuels at that time. They got him separately represented,” Maddocks said. “But he was too worried about being prosecuted again in the early 2000s and no one gave him an immunity.

“I think they talked about it, but they could have gone to the CPS and said, you know, the CPS will give you an immunity against prosecution. I think they were sort of slightly half-hearted about it, but that was one of the reasons they decided not to turn it down. Because he was uncooperative.

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“I’m not criticising them, to be honest. I think they’ve done a good job on this one. They’ve had enough criticisms, generally, haven’t they? So, you know, give them a bit of credit.”

The judges rejected the crown’s argument that there should be a retrial on the grounds that Campbell’s mental capacity had worsened over the years and he could not be fairly tried.

The Met said it would review the full judgment of the court.

A spokesperson for the Crown Prosecution Service 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.”

Speaking to the Guardian before his appeal hearing, Campbell admitted that life for him would probably always have been hard but that he wished he had been given a chance to make it better.

“I could have had a full-time job, kids, married, had a relationship, maybe going on holiday,” he said. “Now I am like in a room and all the doors are locked.”