Abdul Hafidah murder: Trio faced racist gang narrative, law firm says

Durrell Goodall, Nathanial Williams and Reano Walters were found guilty by a jury

Three men convicted of murder faced a "false" and "racist gang narrative" at their trial, their legal team has said as they fight to clear their names.

Durrell Goodall, Reano Walters and Nathanial Williams were jailed in 2017 for the killing of Abdul Wahab Hafidah, 18, in Manchester in May 2016.

Law firm Hodge Jones & Allen has lodged an application to overturn the verdict.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said it would consider any referral made to the Court of Appeal.

Greater Manchester Police (GMP) said its investigation team "did not seek to prosecute the defendants based on their race, gender, age, or any gang affiliation but based on evidence".

Mr Hafidah was kicked, stabbed and hit with a hammer after an evening rush-hour chase through the Moss Side area of the city on 12 May 2016.

Two trials - one at Manchester Crown Court and a second at Preston Crown Court - heard how Mr Hafidah was cornered after he strayed into the "territory" of a gang.

He was knocked down before being assaulted by other gang members, jurors were told.

Abdul Hafidah died two days after he was attacked in Moss Side in 2016

Seven men were found guilty of his murder including Goodall, Walters and Williams, who were 19, 18 and 17 at the time of sentencing.

They were convicted under the law of joint enterprise, which enables several people to be charged with the same offence even though they may have played very different roles.

Two men and a 14-year-old boy were convicted of manslaughter while an 11th person admitted manslaughter at an earlier hearing.

Law firm Hodge Jones & Allen said jurors were told the accused had been part of the "AO gang".

Its existence portrayed in the trial as being factual was in fact false, the firm said.

Partner Darrell Ennis-Gayle said there was "no denying this absolute tragedy and our sympathies will always lie with the Hafida family".

However, he said the prosecution "was allowed to go unchecked and unchallenged in bringing about a false narrative that labelled a group of black and mixed-race boys as gang members, when they were nothing of the sort".

He added: "The fact that the majority of these boys had no previous convictions, had jobs and went to college was irrelevant.

"All that was relevant was where they lived, the music they listened to and the colour of their skin."

He said the law firm had uncovered fresh evidence which had "shone a new light on what we truly believe is a gross miscarriage of justice".

Keir Monteith KC, barrister at Garden Court Chambers, also acting for the families, added the "errors that occurred here need to be viewed through the lens of institutional racism and action needs to be taken".

Delivering the appeal application to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), the mothers of the men said in a joint statement that their sons were "not guilty by association".

"Back in 2017, from the start of the criminal trial that convicted our sons, our fear was always that our sons had been prejudged, because of the colour of their skin and because of where they are from - being black and mixed-race young people from Moss Side in Manchester," they said.

"We know our boys didn't take anyone's life. It is the courts that have taken their lives."

The CCRC confirmed it had received the applications but it was not possible to say at this stage how long the review would take.

"This will depend on the complexity of the issues in the case and the volume of information the CCRC has to review," the spokesman said.

GMP said the "tragic and complex case" was investigated by the force and presented to the CPS which authorised charges.

"Over the course of two trials, the prosecution evidence was laid out and witnesses were severely tested by the defence barristers," the spokesman added.

The force said it was "committed to ensuring proportionate policing of Greater Manchester's diverse communities".

A CPS spokesperson said: "We will always carefully consider the contents of any referral made to the Court of Appeal."