Wandsworth Council has evicted a tenant after a harassment investigation led to his conviction for a rape that had gone unsolved for eighteen years.
The man, Tony Campbell, the brother of former Tottenham, Arsenal and England defender Sol Campbell, was caught by his own chewing gum.
Police identified him as the person who has been harassing neighbours after he jammed chewing gum into a neighbour’s door and car locks during a row in 2019. When officers swabbed the gum for DNA, it matched an unsolved 2004 rape.
Kingston Crown Court found him guilty in May 2023 and jailed him for six years.
Councillor Matthew Corner, the council’s Cabinet Member for Housing, praised the breakthrough. “This case demonstrates why we take every report from residents seriously and we will take swift action against council tenants who break the law,” he said.
“What began as reports of harassment and anti-social behaviour led to crucial forensic evidence being identified and shared with police investigators. That evidence helped secure justice for a victim of a serious offence that had remained unsolved for almost two decades.”
Detective Constable Tony Anionwu, who worked the case, said the attack still haunts the victim eighteen years on. “We are dedicated to removing those who are violent towards women and girls from the streets of London,” he said. “Campbell not only sexually assaulted a young, vulnerable woman who was on holiday, but then went on to harass another man, making him feel uncomfortable in his own home.”
Tony isn’t the only Campbell brother with a record. In 2005, Sol Campbell’s brother John was jailed for 12 months for breaking a fellow student’s jaw at a football training session, after the student suggested the footballer was gay.
Burke Close sits inside the Lennox Estate, already the site of a string of Wandsworth Council failures. This is the estate where the council was accused of hiding records on fire safety, and where it threatened an 82-year-old with eviction over a single Facebook post.
Conviction and eviction are two different legal fights. A council tenant can be found guilty in court and still keep the keys until the council separately wins a possession order.
A row over chewing gum solved a rape. It then took Wandsworth Council three more years to solve the tenancy.
