Teenagers unfairly jailed over chat messages , says MP Lucy Powell

Four teenagers should not have been jailed for eight years for conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm, a Labour MP says.

The young men were convicted over social media messages discussing revenge attacks, sent three days after the death of a friend.

In a letter to the justice secretary, Lucy Powell said they were being "punished for their vague association with others".

The Crown Prosecution Service responded that their "legal test was satisfied" and "it was right" to bring the charges.

The charges centred around the planning and execution of three attacks in the wake of the murder of John Soyoye on 5 November 2020.

The nine-week trial, at Manchester Crown Court, involved 10 defendants in total, all of whom were young black men. Seven of them were 17-years-old at the time of the offences.

Six of them, Ademola Adedeji, Raymond Savi, Azim Okunola, Omolade Okoya, Martin Thomas and Simon Thorne, were found guilty of conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm and given eight years in prison.

A key piece of evidence was a group chat set up on the messaging app Telegram between seven of the boys three days after Mr Soyoye's death.

They discussed Mr Soyoye's death and carrying out revenge attacks on those they believed responsible. No individual named as a potential target in their chat was ever harmed.

The majority of the messages were sent in an initial 24-hour period, and after less than a week the chat fell silent.

Adedeji, Savi, Okunola and Okoya had no further involvement in online discussions about attacks and did not participate in any subsequent violence. They had no prior convictions, and all were attending or about to attend university.

Three of the boys convicted based on their participation in the Telegram chat have lodged requests to appeal their sentences.

Four of the 10 defendants - Harry Oni, Jeffrey Ojo, Gideon Kalumda and Brooklyn Jitobah - were found guilty of conspiracy to murder and given sentences of between 20 and 21 years.

In her letter to Justice Secretary Dominic Raab, and Attorney General Suella Braverman, Ms Powell describes the application of the law around conspiracy charges as "seriously flawed".

The Manchester Central MP said the prosecution's focus on the Telegram chat meant that the boys were "being prosecuted based on messages sent while they were trying to navigate their grief".

Adedeji had an unconditional offer from Birmingham University to study law and had previously written a book about empowering his local community. He had sent 11 messages to the Telegram chat.

Apologising for the messages, he told trial judge Mr Justice Goose in a letter that they were sent after "emotions got the better of me… because someone I regarded as a younger brother had been ruthlessly taken away".

"I absolutely did not mean a word I said," he wrote, "I feel as if I have ruined my life."

In his sentencing remarks for Savi and Adedeji, Mr Justice Goose acknowledged their participation had been brief but said the Telegram chat was "an open discussion about obtaining weapons" and "targeting a number of victims".

Garry Green, a criminal barrister with Doughty Street Chambers, told the BBC: "What is regrettable in the Manchester case, for those who did no more than send messages in a social media group, is their positive and constructive backgrounds appear to have been ignored.

"The CPS test for charging involves an assessment of the evidence and the public interest."

He added that there was "a tendency to adultify young black people", describing it as "a failure to see or recognise the humanity of young black people, treating them much older than they are and, in this instance, likely seeing criminality as a rite of passage which means their future prospects are ignored or simply not seen".

The prosecution's case involved demonstrating to the court that the 10 boys on trial were part of or associating with a gang called M40, named after the postcode of the Moston area in Manchester where they grew up - and drill music and lyrics were included as evidence.

Mr Soyoye, who performed drill music under the name "MD", had been a friend of many of the 10 defendants since their school days. Drill music is a style of rap music that features violent language and imagery.

Ms Powell criticised the prosecution's use of "gang narratives", which she said relied on "racialised assumptions, loose associations and outdated or inaccurate stereotypes of inner-city neighbourhoods like Moston and Moss Side".

But the CPS told the BBC that it was "aware of the complexities of prosecuting cases where there are allegations of gang involvement and prosecutors have clear legal guidance to inform their considerations". It said the evidence had been "carefully assessed" for "each individual in respect of each charge".

Mr Green, who has worked with law reform charity Justice on tackling racial inequalities in the legal system, told the BBC that "there is a disproportionate reliance on drill music in cases where young black males are being prosecuted".

"Black culture, or black cultural heritage is arguably criminalised in a manner which other genres of music are not," he said.

BBC analysis has shown the use of drill music as criminal evidence in court rooms is increasing - but its inclusion as evidence has come under criticism from some academics and legal professionals.

The CPS has said it is reviewing its guidance on the way drill music is used in prosecutions. But in June 2022, the head of the CPS, Max Hill QC, confirmed that, where a defendant appears in a drill music video with co-defendants, "prosecutors would consider whether it was vital evidence of association that a jury should hear".

A demonstration was organised in St Peter's Square in Manchester to show support for the boys, and youth community organisation, Kids of Colour, gathered over 500 offers from the public of tutoring, mentoring and other opportunities, which were presented to the judge before sentencing.

Roxy Legane, head of Kids of Colour, who attended trial throughout, told the BBC the trial showed "all 10 boys have been failed" and pointed to the lack of support available to them in the aftermath of losing a friend.

"It is only with solutions that address root causes that we can start to break cycles of violence and trauma", she said. "The tools for positive change are there, but they are being rejected in favour of punitive punishment, which will never make our communities safe."