made national headlines in late 1971, all of the Nine were acquitted on Thursday, 16 December 1971. Crichlow called the trial "a turning point for black people". Crichlow went on to form the Mangrove Community Association to improve housing and services for ex-offenders, drug addicts, and alcoholics. He was also a central figure in the Notting Hill Carnival; his restaurant served for many years as the base from which activists, musicians and artists organised the event. Despite being well known locally for his anti-drug stance — Heather Mills writes in The Independent that the local joke about him was that "his education is lacking: he's the only Trinidadian who doesn't know what a great draw of ganja is" — Crichlow was charged with drug offences in 1979 but was subsequently cleared of the charges. In 1988, police used sledgehammers to break into The Mangrove, searching for drugs, after hiding in a freight container outside the restaurant, from where they launched the raid. Charged with possession of heroin and cannabis, which he said the police had planted, Crichlow was defended by Gareth Peirce, Michael Mansfield, and Courtenay Griffiths. Crichlow was again acquitted, receiving £50,000 damages from the Metropolitan Police in 1992 for false imprisonment, battery and malicious prosecution. Abner Cohen, writing in 1993, stated that, although Crichlow was never a "leader" in any formal sense, never sought any important office, and was a "shy, diffident" person, he had nevertheless been "one of the most significant West Indian leaders in Britain during the 1970s and 1980s. His role in the Notting Hill Carnival was paramount. [...] What was astonishing about Crichlow was that he did not give up. During twenty turbulent years, he made the Mangrove into a potent symbol of black unity, defiance and resistance." Continuing his activism beyond the closure of The Mangrove, until his death, Crichlow himself said: "As I see it I stood up for my rights and a lot of people identified with that." Personal life and death Crichlow and his partner, Lucy Addington, had a son, Knowlton, and three daughters, Lenora, Francesca, and Amandla; Lenora and Amandla both became actresses. Crichlow died of prostate cancer in 2010, aged 78. His funeral took place on 27 September 2010 at St Mary of the Angels, Bayswater. In popular media and legacy Crichlow appeared in the 1973 Franco Rosso and John La Rose documentary film The Mangrove Nine. In