Justice For Oliver Campbell

‘Oliver Campbell should not have to wait a moment longer for justice’Kirsty Wark,Rough Justice, January 2002
OLIVER CAMPBELL is a community activist and socialist who was framed and imprisoned for 11 years for a murder he did not commit. Kirsty Wark, presenting a BBC Rough Justice programme on Oliver's case, handed a letter to the then Home Secretary David Blunkett stating that Oliver “should not have to wait a moment longer for justice”. Three years later Oliver is out of prison on parole, living in Suffolk and still campaigning to clear his name. In July 1990, during a robbery in Hackney, London, a shopkeeper called Baldev Hoondle was shot and killed. The two men who carried out the robbery were described by witnesses as black and around five feet ten inches tall.
Oliver is a gentle giant of six foot three inches. He was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment despite his co-accused, who admitted the robbery, giving a written account confirming that Oliver was not involved in the robbery and naming the person who shot Baldev Hoondle. The jury was never told this.
How Oliver was framed
Oliver was arrested simply because he’d owned a baseball cap similar to the one worn by the murderer. The police put enormous pressure on him to make a 'confession' for the shooting. Eventually Oliver agreed, but crucially his solicitor was not present at the time, despite Oliver's learning difficulties and specific instructions to the police to call his solicitor if they were going to interview Oliver again that day.
* The police insisted that they would find incriminating forensic evidence, including his fingerprints on a drink can found at the crime scene and his hair in the baseball cap. THEY FOUND NEITHER
* In his ‘confession’ Oliver said he’d dropped the baseball hat in the shop. THIS DID NOT HAPPEN
* Oliver talked of a string holster for the gun. THIS WAS LATER DISMISSED AS IMPRACTICAL BY EXPERTS
* OLIVER COULD NOT DESCRIBE THE GUN OR WHAT HAPPENED TO IT LATER.
* NO WITNESSES IDENTIFIED OLIVER AT THE ID PARADE, BUT THREE MONTHS LATER ONE OF THEM CHANGED HIS MIND!
Despite the overwhelming evidence of Oliver's innocence, the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which was set up to investigate possible miscarriages of justice, has refused to refer Oliver's case to the Court of Appeal. Until his name is cleared Oliver will always be a target for future frame-ups by the police because of his criminal record. In February 2003 there was an attempted armed robbery near the bail hostel in Ipswich where Oliver was living. Despite witness descriptions of a man five inches shorter than Oliver, the police saw Oliver's criminal record and colour of his skin and tried to pin the crime on him.
Why have Hackney police refused to re-investigate the murder of Baldev Hoondle? How many more times must Oliver be the victim of police laziness, racism or corruption?
WE CALL ON THE HOME SECRETARY TO EXAMINE THIS CASE AND CLEAR OLIVER’S NAME. Support the campaign to clear his name What you can do:
*Get people to sign a petition/send a postcard to the home secretary.
*Organise a meeting to show a DVD about Oliver’s case.
*Make a donation to support the campaign.Material available from: www.yre.org.uk/olivercampbell Justice for Oliver Campbell Campaign: P.O. Box 858, London E11 1YG.