British man freed from prison over mistaken identity video

More than two years after he was caught in a murder conspiracy case, a young man was released from prison on Wednesday after Britain’s Court of Appeal found that authorities had misidentified him in a video.

The man, Ademola Adedeji, 21, was among 10 black youths from Manchester who prosecutors had accused of conspiring to murder and maim others to avenge the death of their close friend. His trial became a lightning rod in the country’s confrontation with race and the police.

“It doesn’t feel real because this happens one in a million times,” Mr. Adedeji said of his release in a telephone interview from his parents’ home on Wednesday.

Mr. Adedeji did not attack anyone. Nor did he own a weapon or deal drugs. He helped the police with their investigation. And there was no murder victim.

However, he was convicted of conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm with intent in 2022 and was serving an eight-year term.

Prosecutors portrayed Mr. Adedeji as a gangster, mining photos and videos from his social media posts as evidence. For example, a photo of him holding a wad of money to his ear – a popular Instagram pose – was used as evidence against him.

The case was based on the fact that Mr. Adedeji, then 17, had joined a group chat on Telegram, where he and his teenage friends discussed demanding revenge days after his friend’s murder.

Mr Adedeji sent six text messages to the group over about 20 minutes, sharing the postcode of the men he suspected of killing his friend. No one was injured near the address Mr. Adedeji shared.

Because he was accused of conspiracy along with nine other defendants, including some who committed violent acts, it did not matter that he had not directly killed or injured others.

The conspiracy trial has drawn public attention as an example of how Britain’s crackdown on gangs disproportionately targets black youth.

In the absence of a clear legal definition for a gang, the label tends to be applied disproportionately to groups of black youth. Legal experts say such a designation helps convince jurors of guilt.

One key piece of evidence was a dark, grainy video showing a teenager taunting rivals. Prosecutors had presented it as evidence of Mr. Adedeji’s gang affiliation.

The more times prosecutors played the footage in court, the clearer it became that the man in the video was not Mr. Adedeji. A judge allowed jurors to consider the video, but urged them to be cautious before deciding who was in it.

During an appeal hearing, another teenager confirmed that he, and not Mr. Adedeji, was featured in the video.

On this evidence, the three-judge appellate court overturned the conviction of Mr. Adedeji. It will not be retested.

The court, the second highest in Britain, did not directly address claims of institutional racism in the ruling. However, the judges wrote that “it is vital in any case to avoid the unfair stereotyping of individuals, based on their race, as gang members.”

The judges upheld the conviction of six men in the case, but reduced the prison terms for two other defendants, Raymond Savi and Omolade Okoya, who were convicted on similar charges and sentenced to eight years in prison. His new sentence is four and a half years.

The Crown Prosecution Service, which conducts prosecutions in England and Wales, said in an email that it respects the court’s decision.

“This was a complex case where the evidence was carefully assessed for each individual,” the service said.

Mr Adedeji was beaming on Wednesday after being reunited with his family. His parents picked him up from jail and they all stopped at Burger King before heading home. The first thing he did when he arrived, he said, was hug his younger siblings.

“How many other guys have I met in prison who are in similar situations to me who will never have this opportunity?” he said.