Ademola Adedeji’s lawyers told a hearing his prosecution played on ‘racial stereotypes’
19:41, 15 Jan 2025Updated 19:42, 15 Jan 2025
Ademola Adedeji(Image: GMP)
A young man from Manchester jailed over an alleged gangland murder revenge plot is to be released from prison after senior judges quashed his ‘unsafe’ conviction.
Ademola Adedeji, 21, was convicted in part due to a ‘false identification’ by a police officer who incorrectly claimed he was a boy said to be wearing gang colours in a nine-second drill rap video, a Court of Appeal judgement has ruled. His lawyers told the hearing his prosecution played on ‘racial stereotypes’.
Ademola Adedeji was 17 when he was alleged to have become involved in plotting revenge attacks over the murder of his best friend John Soyoye, who went to the same church. In 2022, following a trial, he and five others were convicted of conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm.
Mr Soyoye, an aspiring rapper also known as MD or Morsley, was regarded as the ‘leader’ of the Moston based M40 gang, the trial heard. He was stabbed to death on November 5, 2020, by members of their rivals, the Rochdale and Oldham based outfit Representing the Danger (RTD).
Revenge attacks were meticulously planned in group chats on Telegram over three months, according to the prosecution. Members of the group were handed lengthy sentences in July 2022 following a trial.
Four defendants were found guilty by a jury of conspiracy to commit murder and another six – among them Adedeji – were found guilty of a conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm with intent. Before the prosecution, Adedeji, who had no previous convictions, had an offer to study law at university and had addressed MPs at the Houses of Parliament.
Mr Adedeji, of Beehive Road, Bolton, was sentenced to eight years for conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm with intent in a young offenders institution.
Keir Monteith KC, representing, Adedeji, criticised the ‘absurd factual scenario’ of the prosecution’s case at trial. He said the conviction was ‘clearly unsafe’, pointing to the ‘wrong’ comments of the sentencing judge, who he said had referenced ‘murderous violence’ in his sentencing remarks when his client had not been convicted of any plot to murder.
Senior judges at the Court of Appeal in London have now set aside the ‘unsafe’ conviction of Mr Adedeji and reduced the sentences passed on two co-defendants, their judgement which was published today (Wednesday) has revealed.
Mr Adedeji was found guilty along with others following a ten-week trial in 2021, with the prosecution using the rap video and also a picture of Mr Adedeji holding cash to his ear, referred to as ‘the money phone’, to demonstrate his alleged affiliation to the M40 gang.
The defendant told the jury the man in the clip wasn’t him but a man called ‘Tyrone’ and the ‘money phone’ picture was just an imitation of a pose he had seen celebrities strike.
Mr Adedeji used the pseudonym ‘Shay Mya’ during alleged revenge chat on the messaging platform Telegram and was also known as ‘Stormzy’, according to the judgment. The defendant had shared the address of one of those responsible for the murder of his friend on the chat, it says.
John Soyoye was stabbed to death in Moston(Image: MEN Media)
Tyrone Numa gave evidence to the Court of Appeal and said he was the person depicted in the nine second video clip and not Mr Adedeji, the judgment reveals. There was ‘sufficient resemblance for that evidence to be capable of being believed’, according to the judges who ruled the police officer’s identification of Adedeji was ‘wrong’.
Lord Justice Dingemans, Mrs Justice Cockerill and Sir Robin Spencer concluded: “In circumstances where: a false identification of Mr Adedeji in the video clip was made; and Mr Adedeji’s identification of “Tyrone” was correct; we find that Mr Adedeji’s conviction is unsafe. The evidence of identification was part of the chain of evidence linking Mr Adedeji to the M40 gang, and was relied on by the prosecution. For these reasons, and in the light of the fresh evidence given by Mr Numa, we quash Mr Adedeji’s conviction.”
The judges also accepted the appeals against sentence against of two co-defendants, Raymond Savi and Omolade Okoya. Savi, then 19, of Droylsden Road, Failsworth, was sentenced to eight years for conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm with intent in a young offenders institution. Okoya, then 19, of Whitecar Avenue, New Moston, was sentenced to eight years for conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm with intent in a young offenders institution.
Their sentences were reduced to four years and six months detention in a Young Offender Institution. The Appeal Court judges said the original sentences handed to the pair and Mr Adedeji ‘failed to reflect’ that their alleged roles ‘lasted for a short period of time a month before any violence was carried out’.
The judges agreed Mr Adedeji ‘had a case to answer’ and that it would have been ‘in the interests of justice to order a retrial’, but they went on that he would not have been sentenced to longer than Okoya or or Savi.
“In such circumstances Mr Adedeji has already served the time that he would have had to serve if convicted, given his role in the conspiracy. We therefore do not order a retrial,” they said.
Alexander John Soyoye, known as John(Image: PA)
The convictions of six other defendants were upheld.
A Crown Prosecution Service spokesperson said: “Every case that is referred to us by the police is considered on its own facts and merits so that we can make fair and independent charging decisions based on the evidence available.
“This was a complex case where the evidence was carefully assessed for each individual in respect of each charge.
“The majority of the convictions were upheld. However, based on fresh evidence not available at the time of the trial, Ademola Adedeji’s conviction alone has today been quashed by the Court of Appeal. The Court did not order a re-trial. We respect the decision of the Court.”