A man with learning disabilities who was jailed for life in 1991 for the murder of a shopkeeper in London has said his “fight for justice is finally over” after his conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal.
Three judges ruled on Wednesday that Oliver Campbell’s conviction for the murder of Baldev Hoondle in Hackney in July 1990 was “unsafe”.
Mr Campbell was 21 when he was jailed following a trial at the Old Bailey, having also been convicted of conspiracy to rob.
The fight for justice is finally over after nearly 34 years. I can start my life am innocent man
At a hearing in February, barristers for Mr Campbell, who suffered severe brain damage as a baby, said he was “badgered and bullied” by police into giving a false confession.
His case was referred to the Court of Appeal by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which investigates potential miscarriages of justice, in 2022, despite previously declining to refer the case in 2005.
While his barristers told the court in February that this was the “wrong decision”, they said there was “compelling” new evidence proving Mr Campbell “cannot be” the killer.
In their ruling, Lord Justice Holroyde, sitting with Mr Justice Bourne and Mrs Justice Stacey, said they had “concluded that the convictions are unsafe”.
Following the judgment, Mr Campbell, now in his 50s, told the PA news agency: “The fight for justice is finally over after nearly 34 years.
“I can start my life an innocent man.”
Mr Campbell suffered severe brain damage as an eight-month-old baby and continues to struggle with memory, concentration and retaining information.
His barrister, Michael Birnbaum KC, told the court earlier this year that there were “ample” grounds to find Mr Campbell’s conviction unsafe, suggesting that he was “dangled with the temptation” by police of falsely admitting the killing was an accident.
Mr Birnbaum said Mr Campbell’s learning disabilities meant he made admissions which were “simply absurd”, and “nonsense”, and contained a “litany of inconsistencies” against the facts of the case.
The court heard that officers may have “deliberately lied” to adduce confessions from Mr Campbell, who was interviewed 14 times but in some cases did not have a solicitor or appropriate adult present, which Mr Birnbaum said was “disgraceful”.
Forensic psychologist Professor Gisli Hannes Gudjonsson also told judges there was a “high risk” that Mr Campbell’s mental disabilities meant he gave a false confession as a form of “acquiescence” during “relentless” questioning.
Mr Birnbaum said Mr Campbell’s learning difficulties meant he “out of his depth” and “simply unable to do justice to himself” when giving evidence.
In their ruling, Lord Justice Holroyde said: “We accept that, considered in the light of the fresh evidence, the rulings might be different.”
He continued: “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.”
The detectives were plainly convinced that, since he was the owner of the hat and had admitted a presence at the robbery, he must have been the shooter, and they were determined to get him to admit that fact
Judges heard that jurors in the original trial were told the gunman wore a British Knights baseball cap, which was found a few hundred yards from the scene.
Mr Birnbaum said Mr Campbell had purchased the cap in the days before the killing, but hairs found inside it following the shooting were not his, and he was not picked out of an identity parade by Mr Hoondle’s son, despite him having come “face to face” with the gunman.
The barrister said: “The detectives were plainly convinced that, since he was the owner of the hat and had admitted a presence at the robbery, he must have been the shooter, and they were determined to get him to admit that fact.”
He continued: “(Mr Campbell believed) his least bad option was to admit it had all been an accident, and our suggestion is that he thought he could get away with doing that.”
Mr Campbell’s co-defendant at trial, Eric Samuels, who has since died, was cleared of murder but was jailed for five years after admitting robbery.
The court heard that Samuels had told his solicitor Mr Campbell was not the gunman and there is “irrefutable” evidence that he “told people over 10 years that Oliver was not with him in the robbery”, but Mr Birnbaum said this was deemed “inadmissible hearsay” in the original trial.
