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An “easily manipulated” brain-damaged youth jailed for shooting dead a shopkeeper in a robbery in 1990 was pressured by Metropolitan Police detectives into falsely confessing to the murder, a court has been told.
In what some believe to be the longest-ever miscarriage of justice in British history, Oliver Campbell, now 53, was found guilty during a trial in 1991 of killing Baldev Hoondle during the raid by two people at a London off-licence.
On Wednesday, 33 years after he was convicted alongside co-defendant Eric Samuels, the Court of Appeal was told there was a “combination of facts so compelling that they prove Oliver can’t have been the gunman”.
Opening the case after spending more than 20 years fighting for it to be referred for appeal, Michael Birnbaum QC said there had been a “slowly building crescendo of concern that Oliver might have confessed falsely”.
Suspicion fell upon Campbell, nearly 20 at the time, after his distinctive black British Knights cap – which was worn by the gunman – was found in an alleyway near Hackney’s G and H store.
“The detectives were plainly convinced that since he was the owner of the hat, he must’ve been the shooter,” Mr Birnbaum told the court. “They were determined to get him to admit that.”
However, while the cap belonged to him, Campbell’s lawyers say it was stolen by the real gunman who wore it during the robbery at about 10.35pm on July 22, 1990.
During a police interview on December 1, 1990, after he had been arrested for murder, Campbell confessed by saying: “I, I like pulled the trigger by accident.”
But Mr Birnbaum said there was a “real possibility his admissions would be excluded” if the case was heard today because Campbell’s severe disabilities, sustained from a brain injury when he was eight months old, were not fully understood at the time.
They include difficulties in concentrating and processing information, as well as being suggestible – agreeing with whatever he thinks someone wants to hear.
Mr Birnbaum, who described Campbell as “easily manipulated”, told the court: “The consensus of experts now is that they agree … that Oliver decided from pressure from police that confessing to an accidental killing was the least bad option.”
The barrister also described the confession as “nonsense” because “the admissions he made were inconsistent with each other and in some cases absurd”.
For example, Campbell said he used the gun with one hand, then said he used the other. He also claimed to use a holster made of string under his left arm, even though he is left-handed.
Referring to his subsequent trial at the Old Bailey, at which Campbell was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment, Mr Birnbaum said: “Oliver was simply unable to to do justice to himself.
“These days, special measures would be taken to ensure Oliver could follow the trial. None of that was available in 1991.
“He was simply an immensely challenged young man. He was simply out of his depth.”
Mr Birnbaum also criticised the “weak identification” of Campbell, who spent 11 years in jail, at the scene by an eyewitness and said evidence from Samuels exonerating him of involvement was not presented to the jury at the time.
The hearing continues and is due to last for two days.
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