Trew's Law: New Report Calls for Automatic Reviews of Cases Linked to Imprisoned Police Officers

APPEAL, together with York Law School and the Centre for Applied Human Rights at the University of York, launched a new policy report calling for a major reform to help prevent miscarriages of justice caused by police misconduct. The report, Trew's Law: The Case for Automatic Reviews of Imprisoned Police Officers' Files for Miscarriages of Justice, argues that when a police officer is imprisoned for serious wrongdoing, there should be an automatic review of the cases they were involved in.

The proposed reform is named after Winston Trew, a member of the Oval Four, who spent almost 50 years fighting to overturn a wrongful conviction based on evidence from corrupt British Transport Police officer Derek Ridgewell. Although Ridgewell was imprisoned in 1980 for conspiracy to steal goods in transit, no systematic review of the cases he worked on ever took place. Many of those wrongly convicted were left to uncover the truth and fight for justice themselves.

The report shows the lasting consequences of that failure. Since 2018, 13 convictions linked to Ridgewell have been quashed, affecting people who collectively spent 623 years living under wrongful convictions.

Importantly, the report demonstrates that this is not only a historical problem. Researchers identified at least 64 serving or former police officers who were imprisoned between 2023 and 2026 for offences including corruption, dishonesty, abuse of position, and violent or sexual offences. Yet there is still no legal requirement for authorities to review convictions connected to those officers

Freedom of Information requests carried out for the research uncovered another troubling gap: there is no central system recording when police officers are imprisoned, whether their previous cases are reviewed, or what happens as a result of those reviews. This means that people affected by police misconduct are often left to discover potential miscarriages of justice themselves, sometimes decades later.

Trew's Law would introduce a mandatory, automatic and independent process to identify and review cases involving imprisoned police officers. The report recommends:

• A statutory duty to trigger reviews when a serving or former police officer receives an immediate custodial sentence.
• Identification of all closed cases in which that officer played a material role.
• Independent oversight of decisions about risk, disclosure and notifications.
• Proactive notification and disclosure to affected individuals where concerns about conviction safety arise.
• Annual public reporting on the number of officers imprisoned, cases reviewed and people notified.

"No one should have to spend decades uncovering the truth about police wrongdoing. Justice shouldn't depend on luck, or on victims fighting for years to expose miscarriages of justice. Trew's Law would place responsibility where it belongs: with the state."

Winston Trew, Member of the Oval Four

The report argues that public confidence in the criminal justice system depends on effective systems for identifying and correcting wrongful convictions when serious police misconduct comes to light. Trew's Law would ensure that responsibility for uncovering potentially unsafe convictions rests with the state, not with those who have already suffered from injustice.

Trew's Law would ensure that people affected by police misconduct are not left to uncover potential miscarriages of justice alone. Help us make Trew's Law a reality by adding your name to the petition and sharing with others.