A Manchester MP is to raise concerns with the justice minister about the sentencing of several young black men who were jailed after taking part in a group chat discussing revenge for the murder of their friend.
Lucy Powell, MP for Manchester Central and shadow culture secretary, said it was just the latest example of black youths in her constituency being unfairly lumped into a ‘gang’ narrative because of the music they listen to and who they know.
She compared the case to another brutal crime in Greater Manchester which took place in the wealthiest suburb and involved a rich white teenager who stabbed his friend to death.
In 2019, Joshua Molnar was acquitted of the murder and manslaughter of 17-year-old Youssef Mackie in Hale Barns, Trafford, after jurors accepted he stabbed him in the heart in self-defence.
Powell contrasted Molnar’s case with a trial in which 10 men aged 18 to 21 from Moston in north Manchester were jailed on Friday for between eight and 21 years for conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm (GBH) or murder.
Jurors found that they planned to avenge the killing of their friend Alexander John Soyoye, who was stabbed to death on November 5, 2020 in a street fight involving some of the accused.
Supporters say the men were found “guilty by association”, some after taking part in a Telegram group chat one day shortly after Soyoye’s murder, weeks before the violence was carried out by some of the other accused.
These four 19-year-olds – Ademola Adedeji, Raymond Sawi, Omolade Okoya and Azim Okunola – did not have weapons, did not commit violence and did not go on any “research missions” to seriously injure those responsible for Soyoye’s death. But they took part in the group chat with boys who did and were jailed for eight years for conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm.
Powell said he was writing to Justice Secretary Dominic Raab to express his concern about the latest case, as well as to Andy Burnham, who as mayor of Greater Manchester is also regional police and crime commissioner.
Powell contrasts their beliefs with the Mackey case, “where two boys were at the scene when Mackey was killed. They had very expensive lawyers and a different demographic profile, went to private school and the main offender [Molnar] it was white and it was presented as a tragic accident. They were “just playing” being part of a gang. That may have been the case, but why not for young black men from north Manchester?’
Defense lawyers in the Moston case complained that their clients were unfairly labeled “gangsters” for watching exercise music videos on their phones.
Molnar, during his trial, filmed himself in the courthouse making piercing moves to the soundtrack of a workout song with the lyric “two swipes of my arm, let’s see who bleeds.”
The Crown Prosecution Service is reviewing legal guidance for prosecutors on how workout music is used in trials amid concerns it could unfairly prejudice some cases.
His definition of workout is “a type of hip-hop often featuring lyrics relating to drug dealing and street crime”, but which may include “lyrics relating to gang violence and death threats which, if applicable to case, may form part of the evidence”.
Some of the inmates were aspiring rappers from a loose music collective known as M40 or simply 40, named after their Moston postcode. Others have watched videos of the M40 and other exercises.
Aitch, a white rapper from Moston who has two top 10 hits in the UK charts, is sometimes associated with the name M40, the jury heard.
Sentencing the 10 men at Preston Crown Court, Mr Justice Goose ruled that M40 was also a criminal gang of which the 10 defendants were either “members or associates”.
Several M40 music videos featuring some of the defendants were played to the jury. One, No Hook, has more than 180,000 views. It opens with a drone shot looking up at Asda in Moston and showing a large number of black youths with their faces covered rapping and posing outside the takeaway. The two main rappers in the video are Soyoye and Harry Oni, who was sentenced to 21 years for conspiracy to murder.
Other defendants simply watched exercise videos. Okoya had 3,019 videos on his phone, including three M40 videos, including No Hook, watched once. His barrister Adam Kane QC tried to argue that this did not mean he was a violent man.
“Those of a certain age will know what I mean when I note that Eric Clapton really didn’t shoot the sheriff, nor did he shoot the deputy,” Kane said.
“Watching [drill videos]or listening to [drill]doesn’t mean you’re going to emulate the things they’re talking about in real life, any more than watching Scarface or Goodfellas or Casino or The Godfather Part 1, 2 or 3 makes you a mobster.”
In 2017, 11 teenagers were jailed in connection with the murder of a youth in Moss Side in Powell’s constituency. A key piece of evidence presented by the prosecution to suggest the men were in a gang was a practice video of a song called AO (only active).
Three accused appeared in the AO video, in peripheral appearances without rapping. The jury was not told that the video was organized by a youth worker and partly funded by Greater Manchester Police.
Powell wrote a letter on behalf of her constituents, which was given to the judge before Friday’s sentencing, in which she said: “The frequent use of gang narratives in [these] the prosecution relied heavily on racial assumptions, loose associations and outdated or inaccurate stereotypes of urban neighborhoods such as Moston and Moss Side.
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