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© Copyright, Criminal Cases Review Commission 2026.

Poulter, Christopher

Published:

In April 1976, Christopher Poulter was convicted of the theft of 13 mailbags and their contents at Inner London Crown Court, alongside his co-defendants Stephen Simmons and Kevin Biggs. He was given a 12-month prison sentence.

The prosecution’s case was that the defendants had been seen by three British Transport Police (BTP) officers, including DS Ridgewell, stealing mailbags from a stationary goods wagon in Clapham Goods Yard in the early hours of 4 June 1975. They were alleged to have been spotted by the police and made off in car, but a pursuit ended in their arrest. 

In the 1970s, DS Ridgewell was involved in a series of arrests and convictions in which it was later discovered he had framed innocent people, particularly young black men, for his own criminality. In 1980 he was jailed for seven years after stealing over £1 million of goods in transit. He died in prison two years later. 

Mr Poulter was the 14th person to have his conviction sent back to the courts by the CCRC based on new evidence about DS Ridgewell. 

The defence in Mr Poulter’s case was that the defendants had been in a pub in Tooting all evening and were later approached by police officers who asked them what they had been doing that night and arrested them. All three men made admissions to the offences but did not sign their interview records as being correct.  

Mr Poulter never appealed his conviction because he received legal advice that he had no grounds to do so. He applied to the CCRC in November 2025 after being spoken to by British Transport Police as a result of its own live investigation into DS Ridgewell’s misconduct. 

Following a review, the CCRC decided to refer the conviction to the Court of Appeal on three grounds: 

  • The details of the conviction of DS Derek Ridgewell in 1980 
  • The fact that the credibility of DS Ridgewell was a central feature in the case against Mr Poulter and his co-defendants 
  • The Court of Appeal quashing other convictions on the basis of new evidence about DS Ridgewell, in particular Mr Poulter’s co-defendant, Stephen Simmons. Mr Poulter was convicted on the same facts and evidence as Mr Simmons. 

There was therefore a real possibility that the Court of Appeal would take the same approach to Mr Poulter’s conviction and quash it.  

The CCRC referred the conviction in February 2026.