Brain-damaged man made ‘absurd’ murder confession after police ‘lied’ to him

Oliver Campbell arrives at the Royal Courts of Justice (Picture: PA)

A man with learning difficulties was lied to by detectives determined to make him confess to a murder he had nothing to do with, the Court of Appeal has been told.

Oliver Campbell was 21 when he was jailed for life at the Old Bailey for shooting shopkeeper Baldev Hoondle in the head during a robbery at his store in Hackney, east London, in July 1990.

Now 53 and having served 11 years behind bars, he is seeking to have his conviction quashed in what would be one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British history.

His case was referred by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) after new evidence emerged over Campbell’s ‘vulnerabilities’.

At the start of a two-day hearing in London, barristers for Campbell – who was released from prison in 2002 – said there is a ‘compelling’ case proving his innocence.

Michael Birnbaum KC, representing Campbell, said: ‘There are ample grounds on which you could find these convictions to be unsafe. There is no one factor here that proves innocence.

‘Rather, I will seek to put before the court a combination of factors so compelling they prove that Oliver Campbell cannot be the man who shot Baldev Hoondle.’

Campbell suffered severe brain damage as an eight-month-old baby and continues to struggle with memory, concentration and retaining more than the simplest verbal information.

Campbell, who is now in his 50s, was handed a life sentence over the fatal shooting of Baldev Hoondle during a robbery at a supermarket in Hackney in 1990 (Picture: PA)

Jurors at his trial were told the gunman wore a distinctive British Knights baseball cap, which was found a few hundred yards from the G and H store.

Mr Birnbaum said Campbell owned the hat, which had been purchased in the days before the killing, but hairs found inside it following the shooting were not his.

Campbell was identified by a passer-by, but his lawyers claim he is both taller and younger than the witness’ description of the gunman.

Further, he was not picked out of an identity parade by Mr Hoondle’s son, despite him having come ‘face to face’ with the killer.

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 Samuels told his solicitor his co-accused was not the gunman and Campbell’s barrister said there is ‘irrefutable’ evidence he ‘told people over 10 years that Oliver was not with him in the robbery’.

But the main evidence proving Campbell’s innocence was not disclosed to jurors at trial as it was deemed ‘inadmissible hearsay’, with Campbell’s learning difficulties meaning he was ‘simply unable to do justice to himself’ when giving evidence.

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Mr Birnbaum said: ‘He might well have appeared to the judge and the jury to be a liar when he was simply a mentally challenged young man who was completely out of his depth in giving evidence in front of the jury in what is probably the largest and most intimidating courtroom in the land.’

The key pieces of evidence against Campbell were his own admissions to police.

His barristers told the court Campbell was interviewed during the investigation without a solicitor and officers may have ‘deliberately lied’ to him to adduce confessions.

Mr Birnbaum 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.’

Campbell’s case has been referred to the Court of Appeal by the CCRC after new evidence about his ‘vulnerability’ was obtained (Picture: PA)

Campbell’s team claim the interviewing officers falsely exaggerated the evidence against him and flipped between suggesting the shooting could only have been deliberate and insinuating it may have been an accident.

His learning difficulties meant he made admissions described as ‘simply absurd’, ‘nonsense’ and containing a ‘litany of inconsistencies’ against the facts of the case, judges heard.

Mr Birnbaum added: ‘The reason for the nonsense of Oliver’s confession were simply because he was not there, and did not know the details of what happened.’

A previous appeal against Campbell’s conviction was dismissed in 1994, with the CCRC declining to refer the case in 2005 before making the current referral in 2022.

Mr Birnbaum said that, while the CCRC had previously undertaken a ‘very fine and thorough investigation’ into Campbell’s case, it reached the ‘wrong decision in deciding not to refer the case’ almost two decades ago.

Lord Justice Holroyde, Mrs Justice Stacey and Mr Justice Bourne are expected to give their judgment at a later date.

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