Human Rights Group Supports Manchester Men Who Claim Racism Led to Convictions

The human rights campaign group Liberty has supported three black men who are challenging their murder convictions on the grounds of institutional racism by Greater Manchester police and the criminal justice system.

Liberty has submitted its own evidence to the Criminal Cases Review Commission to back the application made in May by the three men, Durrell Goodall, Reano Walters, and Nathaniel “Jay” Williams, who are currently serving life sentences.

They were convicted as teenagers under the controversial joint enterprise law for the 2016 killing of Abdul Hafidah, 18, in the inner-city Manchester area of Moss Side. Only one teenager, Devonte Cantrill, 19, committed the fatal stabbing, but 11 defendants, all black, were convicted – seven of murder and four of manslaughter – after GMP and the Crown Prosecution Service alleged they were members of a violent gang, AO, who had chased Hafidah down because he was in a rival gang.

Liberty argues in its submission that evidence of alleged gang membership presented by the police and