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Tireless campaigner for jailed husband dies of cancer aged 61
Danny Brierley03.02.09
THE woman behind London's "George Davis is Innocent OK" campaign has died after a long fight with cancer.
Rose Dean-Davis devoted herself to a campaign to free her gangland husband from a prison sentence handed down in a famous miscarriage of justice.
The East End armed robber became the centre of a Seventies crusade whose slogan was sprayed on walls across Britain.
At its height "George Davis is Innocent OK" was a common sight in inner cities and a pointed reminder to the establishment that the wrong man had been jailed for an armed payroll robbery at the London Electricity Board offices in Ilford on 4 April 1974.
Davis, who became a hero in the East End, was arrested with three others in the same month.
At his trial the three co-accused were acquitted but he was convicted on two counts and sent to prison for 20 years.
His wife's tireless work to free him helped pave the way for several other convictions to be overturned but was tarnished when Davis was caught red-handed carrying out a bank robbery in north London a year after being freed.
Websites not being in existence, graffiti was the most effective weapon in the arsenal of the campaign which Mrs Dean-Davis ran from the front room of the family home.
It helped keep the case in the public eye and maintained pressure on the Government to review Davis's trial. It can still be seen in some places and has entered the annals of history as an ironically inaccurate epitaph to the crusade. The fight to free Davis made national headlines in 1975 while he was serving his 20-year term.
A Twest match pitch at Headingley, Yorkshire, was sabotaged before an England match against Australia by supporters who dug the slogan into the grass. They were later caught and jailed.
Supporters said the death on Saturday of Mrs Dean-Davis, 61, from Stepney, marked the passing of an era.
Her son Rick Davis said: "She never had an easy life, I just wish she'd had a happy one.
"I was only seven at the time but I remember mum working so hard and organising marches. She was so strong."
The cause was taken up by pop stars, including The Who singer Roger Daltrey who wore a T-shirt bearing the slogan on stage.
Davis, 67, was pardoned by then home secretary Roy Jenkins in 1976 but jailed in 1978 for a bank robbery. He now lives in north London.
Reader views (2)
A true fighter! They really don't make 'em like that anymore.
- N.Sykes, London
Sorry news because she had a hard time of it during as well as after Davis's mid 1976 release. As a committed co-campaigner I have absolutely no regrets - the evidence against Davis wasn't reliable hence his release by Royal Prerogative. Whatever came later doesn't make the original evidence any more reliable.
- Ian Cameron, London.
