The Manchester 10: where a racialised 'gang' narrative led to unsafe convictions

On Friday 12 July 2024, the Court of Appeal heard submissions that Ademola Adedeji, Omolade Okoya, Raymond Savi and Martin Thomas, convicted for conspiracy to commit Grievous Bodily Harm (GBH), and that Harry Oni, Brooklyn Jitoboh, Jeffrey Ojo, who were convicted of conspiracy to commit murder, should be granted leave to appeal their convictions. All the Applicants are Black.

Keir Monteith KC and Audrey Cherryl Mogan, of Garden Court Chambers, represent Ademola Adedeji, who is currently serving an eight-year prison sentence. Elena Papamichael of Garden Court Chambers represents Martin Thomas as junior counsel, led by Arlette Piercy of 25 Bedford Row, also serving an eight-year prison sentence. Keir Monteith KC made oral representations for leave to appeal Adedeji's conviction, and Audrey Cherryl Mogan on leave to appeal his eight-year sentence.

On 5 November 2020, Alexander John Soyoye was killed. Soyoye and Adedeji were childhood friends who attended the same church. After Soyoye's death, Adedeji was invited to a  group chat with nine others, in which he sent 11 messages, shortly before leaving the chat, around 20 minutes after it had been set up. Adedeji shared a postcode in the group chat.

Three violent incidents, involving two of the boys in the group chat, took place. Adedeji was not present for any of the incidents, and no one was harmed at the address that he gave, but all ten members of the group chat, The Manchester 10, were arrested and convicted. 

The prosecution argued that Adedeji and the others were part of a violent criminal 'gang' that had orchestrated 'revenge attacks'. During the trial, the officer in the case (OIC) gave evidence that, whilst watching a nine second video from one of the defendant’s phones, he recognised Adedeji.

The prosecution claimed that because Adedeji was wearing a blue bandana, it meant he was a member of a violent criminal gang. Adedeji said the police officer had got the identification wrong. As part of the appeal investigation, Zachary Whyte of Sperrin Law, the solicitor for the Applicants, tracked down the actual person in the video, a youth of good character who is not a criminal gang member. This compelling fresh evidence demonstrates the dangers of using stereotypes as part of a prosecution case, and what goes wrong when the police breach codes of practice in relation to identification evidence.

Keir Monteith KC also criticised the prosecution’s use of stereotypes and guilt by association when they asked the jury to conclude, as they closed the case, that the Applicant and three other defendants had become involved in gang culture: ‘Because of the area in which they lived, because they had an interest in drill rap with its themes of violence, drugs and criminality that we have heard about…Some of them became involved because of who they were friends with…”’ 

Keir Monteith KC submitted that the use of a "gang narrative for people who had no part in violence" was used to build the prosecution's case against Adedeji, and that "institutional racism" helps "explain what went wrong in this case."

Further 'evidence' that was deployed by the prosecution to convict Adedeji, such as a photo of him with cash to his ear, was also questioned by Keir Monteith KC in the Court of Appeal. Monteith KC argued that Adedeji, as he said at trial, was simply "copying celebrities" in a social media phenomenon known as the 'money phone', and the prosecution, judge's and the jury's reliance on such evidence as 'gang culture' and drug dealing was influenced by "racist stereotyping and cultural ignorance".

Former President of Def Jam records Kevin Liles provided fresh evidence on the money phone, saying “the attempt to submit images of a money phone as "gang activity" is breathtaking cultural ignorance and laziness…At worst, it is a knowingly cynical and racist attempt to criminalize hip-hop and Black culture.”  

This fresh evidence was also supported by two expert reports from Dr Patrick Williams and Ciaran Thapar, who confirmed the existence of the money phone phenomenon. Zachary Whyte also provided numerous photos of the money phone in action.

This is the first time that submissions have been publicly made in the Court of Appeal that a conviction is "unsafe", because so called 'gang evidence' is the product of "institutional racism". There are thirteen grounds of appeal for Ademola Adedeji, which include five areas of fresh evidence and groundbreaking submissions on the law of conspiracy.

Keir Monteith KC said today:

"I hope that this appeal succeeds so this miscarriage of justice can be overturned and the broken justice system fixed. As in this case and for far too long, the prosecution have relied on stereotypes, myths and assumptions to convict young Black lads of crimes they just didn’t commit. The Court of Appeal now has a historic opportunity to set a gold standard for how criminal 'gang' cases are prosecuted, scrutinised and presented before a jury."

On behalf of Martin Thomas, it was argued that the word 'gang' should not have been permitted to be used against the teenage defendants without any evidential basis or agreed definition of such a highly prejudicial term. The Court of Appeal was told that the word 'gang' appeared 118 times in the judge's summing up of the case. It was further argued that the use of rap lyrics to support a prosecution was unfair and they were presented to the jury in a way that stripped any cultural context or understanding. 

In arguing that Adedeji’s sentence was too high, Audrey Cherryl Mogan noted that Adedeji was a promising young student, having attained an offer to study Law at Birmingham University and wrote a book “Something to Say”, which he presented to MPs in Parliament. Given that he was only 17-years-old at the time of the offence, the Court should have properly considered the Sentencing Councils Guidelines on Children and Young People, which makes clear that the Court should focus on the individual child, and that prison is a measure of last resort.

Racial Bias in the Justice System

A recent study, 'Racial Bias and the Bench', by the University of Manchester concluded that racial bias in the justice system overwhelmingly affects young Black people, especially young Black boys. [1]

According to government statistics, white defendants have a lower average custodial sentence compared to other ethnic groups, and Black people are more likely to be prosecuted than their white counterparts for the same crimes. [2]

As highlighted in the Lammy Review, and previously in the Macpherson report [3], ‘BAME [4] individuals face bias, including overt discrimination, in parts of the justice system’, and joint enterprise is applied overwhelmingly in a disproportionate manner against Black defendants. With one study stating Black people are serving time under joint enterprise at 11 times their presence in the population as a whole [5].

It is clear that there is an institutional problem when it comes to race in cases of joint enterprise and the admission and testing of ‘gang’ evidence and directions to the jury [6].

Audrey Cherryl Mogan went through these extensive statistics and the failure to consider the disproportionality in sentencing Black people of Grievous Bodily Harm (GBH) to show that the eight-year sentence was manifestly excessive.

Audrey stated to the Court:

"If it is not for the Crown, defence or Judge at the sentencing hearing to raise and properly consider the disproportionate sentences given to Black men for GBH, then who is it [the Sentencing Council guidelines] written for?” 

The Court of Appeal hearing received press coverage in  ITV News and Manchester Evening News. 

The case has previously featured in ITV News, Daily Mail and the Channel 4 documentary 'Jailed over a group chat', part of Channel 4's UNTOLD documentary series. PROOF magazine has also covered the case in their most recent edition 'Miscarriages of Justice', available to read in full here. 

Further details on the case and the submissions made are available. Please contact marketing@gclaw.co.uk for further information.

Notes to Editors

1. 'Compound Injustice: A review of cases involving rap music evidence in England and Wales', by Dr Eithne Quinn, Erica Kane, Will Pritchard. The reports states that: "84% of defendants (in cases involving rap music evidence) were ethnic minority people, with 66% of those Black, compared with 4% of the overall English and Welsh population, with a further 12% Black or mixed. Furthermore, 53% of cases were joint enterprise prosecutions, the controversial legal doctrine that enables prosecutors to charge multiple people with a single crime."

2. Statistics on Ethnicity and the Criminal Justice System 2020 A Ministry of Justice publication under Section 95 of the Criminal Justice Act 1991: "Since 2016, White defendants have had a consistently lower average custodial sentence length (ACSL) than other ethnic groups. In 2020, White offenders had an ACSL of 19.6 months in comparison with 26.8 for Black offenders, 28.6 for Asian offenders, and 24.4 for offenders of Mixed and Chinese or Other ethnic groups." Available to read in full here.  

3. Macpherson Report definition of institutional racism - "6.34…The collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people. It persists because of the failure of the organisation openly and adequately to recognise and address its existence and causes by policy, example and leadership. Without recognition and action to eliminate such racism, it can prevail as part of the ethos or culture of the organisation. It is a corrosive disease."

4. The phrase BAME (Black, Asian, and minority ethnic) was used to refer to members of non-white communities at the time of the Lammy Review in 2017. In March 2021, the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities recommended that the government stop using the term BAME. One of the recommendations in the final report on COVID-19 disparities, published in December 2021, was to refer to ethnic minority groups individually, rather than as a single group. This was supported by research commissioned by the Race Disparity Unit (RDU), which found that people from ethnic minorities were 3 times more likely to agree than disagree that the term ‘BAME’ was unhelpful. The Bar Council has also since updated its guidelines.

5. Cited in Patrick Williams and Becky Clarke, 'Dangerous associations: Joint enterprise, gangs and racism,' page 7: “Moreover, the Cambridge submission found that the proportion of Black/Black British people serving custodial sentences for JE offences is 11 times greater than the proportion of the general population who are Black/Black British (37.2% compared to 3.3%).” - The original source of this figure, the 'Cambridge submission' to which they refer, is Ben Crewe, Susie Hulley, and Serena Wright, their written submission on joint enterprise to the justice select committee in 2014. Available here. With a summary of the findings of the committee available here.

6. The extent of the problem is exemplified by the fact that the Crown Court Compendium [CCC] contains no directions on how to rebut racist stereotyping. This is in contrast to directions to combat stereotypes in relation to sexual offences.