‘I used to be convicted of a homicide I did not see occur – the regulation wants to alter’

A person who was jailed for homicide though he was 200 yards away when the deadly stabbing occurred has referred to as for the regulation to be modified.

Joseph Appiah, referred to as Cleeshay, was simply 16 when he was discovered to have killed one other teenager and spent 12 years behind bars. He was convicted below controversial joint enterprise legal guidelines, which meant that though he did not stab the sufferer to loss of life himself, he was discovered as culpable as the teenager who did.

Campaigners argue the regulation is being wrongly used, with MPs final week listening to it branded “a miscarriage of justice on the same scale as the Post Office Horizon scandal”. Figures present joint enterprise is disproportionately used towards black suspects.

More than 1,000 suspects have been convicted of homicide or manslaughter below joint enterprise between 2010 and 2020. High-profile instances included David Norris and Gary Dobson, who have been discovered responsible of the 1993 homicide of Stephen Lawrence.

Cleeshay was a part of a bunch that clashed with rival schoolboys when he was 15, and the violence resulted within the tragic stabbing of a 16-year-old in May 2010. Now 29, he feels a burning sense of injustice, saying he was surprised to be charged with homicide, having not seen the deadly stabbing occur.

He advised The Mirror: “I didn’t see it, I didn’t know what happened and I can account for where I was, I could prove it. I always thought, well, you know, I didn’t do it, so when all the evidence comes out, eventually they will see the light, but that’s not how it went.”

Cleeshay, who now campaigns with strain group Joint Enterprise Not Guilty by Association (JENGbA), admitted he’d gone alongside anticipating a combat, however mentioned he did not realise it could escalate. He mentioned there was a confrontation after certainly one of his mates was humiliated in a playground scrap.

He mentioned he did not count on to face a homicide cost after being arrested in reference to the stabbing. Cleeshay mentioned: “It’s crazy what they’re doing, they trial us as if we’re adults, like they expect us to foresee this, they expect us to leave when this happens. When you’re a child, you just go with the flow. You’re following your friends even if you’re scared like I was scared, if I run off or if I leave now I’m gonna be like the coward. There’s a lot of pressure being a young boy from London.”

Cleeshay’s case was featured in a BBC documentary, Guilty By Association, again in 2014. It highlighted the marketing campaign to overturn his conviction and that of fellow defendant Edward Conteh, who was 16. Conteh was convicted of manslaughter regardless of the pair being a great distance behind their mates when the stabbing occurred.

Back in 2016, the Supreme Court mentioned that joint enterprise had been wrongly utilized in courts for at the least three a long time. Judges mentioned an individual ought to solely be responsible in the event that they supposed to encourage or help the one who dedicated the offence – which Cleeshay mentioned wasn’t the case for him.

On Friday Ms Johnson advised MPs that the usage of joint enterprise regulation in instances like Cleeshay’s was much like the Post Office injustice and mentioned it had “destroyed many lives”. He watched on because the Commons heard MPs throughout the House have critical issues about how the regulation is getting used.

Ms Johnson’s Private Member’s Bill says joint enterprise ought to solely apply if somebody has made a “significant contribution” to the crime. She mentioned: “Joint enterprise is currently wielded as a blunt instrument by the courts, allowing people who have not made a significant contribution to a murder to receive a mandatory life sentence.”

Cleeshay, who has given talks in colleges about his expertise, mentioned he nonetheless hasn’t given up hope of his homicide conviction being overturned in the future. He mentioned: “It would be amazing just to clear my name because I’ve had to carry that title everywhere I went. In prison I was always seen as a murderer, people from my school, my college talking about me, it would just be nice for me and myself just to finally just clear my name.”

Responding to Ms Johnson’s Bill, Justice Minister Gareth Bacon admitted it’s an “extremely complex” space of regulation, however mentioned he wouldn’t assist Ms Johnson’s instructed change. He advised MPs the edge for anybody to be prosecuted and located responsible below the joint enterprise precept is “very high”, including: “They must intend to assist or encourage the commission of the crime and therefore must know of the existing fact necessary to make it criminal.

“If the crime requires the principal to have a specific intent then the secondary should intend to help or encourage the principal to behave with that intent.”

A study by the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies in 2022 found that just over 1,000 secondary suspects were convicted of murder or manslaughter in the ten years to 2020. Almost half of those convicted of murder in these cases were Black and minority ethnic communities.

Ms Johnson said: “I used to be deeply upset that the Government missed this chance to handle the joint enterprise miscarriage of justice. It was clear from the talk that there’s cross-party consensus that joint enterprise is flawed.”

She added: “Today is only a additional step in a protracted marketing campaign and I’ll proceed to combat alongside the JENGbA households till we obtain justice.”