Winston Silcott

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Winston Silcott is a convicted British murderer and was one of the Tottenham Three who were convicted in March 1987 of the murder of Police Constable Keith Blakelock on the night of 6 October 1985 during the Broadwater Farm riot in north London. All three convictions were quashed in 1991 after forensic tests suggested that confessions had been fabricated.

Silcott subsequently received compensation of £17,000 for his wrongful conviction. Two of the investigating police officers were prosecuted for fabricating evidence but were acquitted in 1994. Silcott received a further £50,000 in compensation from the Metropolitan Police in an out-of-court settlement which ended a civil prosecution against the force for malicious prosecution.

He served eighteen years for another murder, that of boxer and reputed gangster Tony Smith, for which he was on bail when Blakelock was killed. Silcott claims that he killed Smith in self defence. Regardless of the truth in the Smith case, the negative media comment still regularly aimed at Silcott is almost always linked to his association (albeit a false one) with the Blakelock murder rather than with the killing of Smith. He was released in October 2003.

In 2005, the police recruited Silcott to run a youth centre on the Broadwater Farm Estate, in a bid to reduce youth crime in the area.