Winston Silcott

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Winston Silcott was wrongly convicted of murder as 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 on 25 November 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 through an overturned conviction) with the Blakelock murder rather than with the killing of Smith. He was released in October 2003. Silcott had also spent 6 months in prison for assault in a nightclub prior to his conviction for the murder of Smith.

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.