Two men, Christopher Poulter and Kevin Biggs, had their theft convictions overturned at the Court of Appeal nearly 50 years after they were wrongly arrested due to the actions of a corrupt police officer. In 1976, Poulter, who was 21 at the time, and Biggs, then 18, were convicted of stealing 13 mailbags from a wagon in Clapham goods yard in London. The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), an independent body that reviews potential miscarriages of justice, referred their case to the Court of Appeal earlier this year after new evidence emerged about a disgraced police officer, DS Derek Ridgewell. Ridgewell was jailed for seven years in 1980 after stealing over £1 million in goods and was found to have framed innocent young Black men for his own crimes, according to the CCRC. He was one of three officers who claimed to have seen Poulter and Biggs stealing the mailbags and fleeing by car. The men's defense was that they had been at a pub in Tooting, south London, all night before being arrested. Poulter received a one-year prison sentence, while Biggs was sent to a borstal, a type of training institution for young offenders, at their trial in 1976. Biggs died in 2004, but his innocence was uncovered through an investigation by the British Transport Police, who were searching for victims of Ridgewell. Poulter and Biggs are the 14th and 15th people to have their convictions overturned due to Ridgewell's misconduct. They were originally convicted alongside a third man, Stephen Simmons, whose conviction was overturned in 2018. At a recent hearing, Lord Justice Edis, along with two other judges, stated that the appeals should have been heard together but noted that it was not possible to include Biggs’s relatives, who had already passed away, or locate Poulter to join the appeal with Simmons. The two appeals were granted, and their convictions were overturned. Jenny Wiltshire, a lawyer representing many of Ridgewell’s victims, called it a "disgrace" that the British Transport Police took so long to track down victims. She noted that it has now been 50 years since these two men were wrongly convicted. The British Transport Police knew for certain that Ridgewell was corrupt just four years after the men were convicted and likely much earlier. However, they did nothing at the time and only recently began addressing the issue. As a result, Poulter has spent most of his life living with the stigma of a criminal record, while Biggs died as a convicted man. A spokesperson from the British Transport Police said that Ridgewell’s corrupt actions were first brought to their attention in 2020, and they continue to review historic cases to find other potential victims. CCRC chairwoman Dame Vera Baird KC said it was right that the men’s convictions were overturned and urged others who believe they were wrongly convicted due to Ridgewell to apply to the CCRC for further review.