A convicted murderer jailed for shooting dead a shopkeeper in 1990 could be cleared this week in what would be the longest-ever miscarriage of justice in British history.
Oliver Campbell, who has severe learning disabilities, spent 11 years inside after a jury found him guilty of killing Baldev Hoondle during a robbery at a London off-licence.
But Campbell, now 53 and living in Suffolk, has long protested his innocence – even though he initially confessed to the crime.
As well as pointing to a lack of DNA and ballistics evidence, Campbell’s lawyers argue Metropolitan Police detectives “ran rings around him” to pressure some with learning difficulties into falsely admitting to murder.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which referred the case for appeal after a two-year review, said the “full extent of his vulnerabilities were not properly understood” and that there is a “real possibility” his conviction could be overturned.
If the Court of Appeal quashes his sentence after 33 years, it could pose further serious questions for the justice system after the wrongful convictions of Andrew Malkinson for rape and dozens of subpostmasters during the Post Office Horizon scandal.
Supporters of Campbell say head injuries he sustained as an eight-month-old baby, which left him with a borderline defective IQ, mean he “simply was not capable of carrying out such a crime”.
Suspicion initially fell on him because the robbers dropped his distinctive “Black Knights” cap as they fled the murder scene on Sunday, July 22, 1990.
Barrister Michael Birnbaum said the real killer stole Campbell’s cap and wore it during the robbery – and that police therefore “jumped to the conclusion that he must’ve been the shooter”.
Campbell, nearly 20 at the time, was arrested and often questioned without a lawyer or appropriate adult present.
Crucially, his legal representative was not present when he confessed to the murder, telling officers: “I, I like pulled the trigger by accident.”
Campbell’s disabilities mean he cannot process or remember anything more than the simplest verbal information.
One effect of his difficulties is that he is suggestible, meaning he is highly likely to agree with whatever he thinks people want to hear.
Glyn Maddocks, Campbell’s solicitor, who has fought for decades to overturn the conviction, said his client was a “lamb to the slaughter” during the police interviews and subsequent trial.
“Oliver was confused,” he said. “He believed at the time that if he confessed they would let him go.
“He’d have owned up to being President Kennedy if they’d pushed him harder.
“The confession was got out of him in a way it shouldn’t have been. Whatever he said was nonsense, he didn’t even know what colour the gun was.
“Very experienced police officers ran rings around him and made him confess to something he didn’t do.”
Doubts first started to emerge about Campbell’s conviction in 2000, when a ballistics expert told the BBC’s Rough Justice documentary that the gun must have been fired by a right-handed shooter. Campbell is left-handed.
But the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which investigates potential miscarriages of justice, did not refer Campbell’s case for appeal until 2022.
Chairwoman Helen Pitcher said at the time: “It is now clear that, at the time of Mr Campbell’s trial, the full extent of his vulnerabilities were not properly understood.”
A report by Gísli Guðjónsson, an international expert on false confessions and false memory syndrome, was a key part of the review.
Ms Pitcher added: “We’ve decided that there is a real possibility that the Court of Appeal will now overturn his convictions in light of this new evidence.”
The Crown Prosecution Service, represented by John Price KC, is responding to the appeal.
Yet Mr Maddocks has claimed: “It will be a very, very strange Court of Appeal not to quash the conviction.”
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: “The case was fully investigated at the time, with a range of evidence brought before a jury who convicted the defendant in 1991.
“We are aware this matter has been referred back to the Court of Appeal by the CCRC and therefore it would not be appropriate to comment further at this stage.”
