Right, let me tell you a story about a wonderful restaurant and why you should always take kids you work with to community spots.

Tonight in Jafra, a beautiful Palestinian restaurant in Rusholme, we had our first fight at Kids of Colour.

The kids are fine now, but it was big. Tables went, food went. Staff were on the floor holding kids and slipping on beautiful food (we laugh now 😅❤️). But this restaurant man, and our kids ❤️❤️ my heart is full.

Staff came straight over, and some of them with a bit more strength got straight in, and all took a role

Long 🧵Save for Later 👀

It’s going to take me years to figure out what to do with my notes from this case, and how to make them accessible.

Here’s some screenshots on how the ‘gang’ narrative was forced down throats, and how it was resisted. Best landscape, boys are in bold. Here Boy 1, 2 & 4 describe to defence what M40 meant to them. Boy 1 talks about his relationships with some of those that killed his friend, which were amicable (no long standing feud before his death), and Boy 2 made clear he doesn’t know many of those he shared the dock with

Sometimes I find I get annoyed by one detail. The prosecutor last Thursday saying ‘that gang then drove a car into him’… and you think… ‘the ‘gang’ did?’.

At that harm, there were 4 people. 3 unknown, 1 defendant, whose evidence suggested it was a disconnected incident to the other harm earlier that month.

But as I sat with people in the court who were hearing all this for the first time at sentencing, it was like, wow they are so good at making this group/‘gang’ responsibility.

When one QC tried to note their client’s harm level should be

VERDICT DAY.

After 3 months of tweeting updates, I’ve no plan for this thread as I have others. More will come from @KidsOfColourHQ, I guess I need to out grief here.

All 10 were found guilty. As soon as the word ‘gang’ entered that court, that was it. I’m mad that I had hope. How can there be a just trial in a country that’s racist to its core. There can’t. And all in court were shocked the four on bail - who just text - have now gone to prison. Stripped from us by the state.

& just like when the prosecutor’s son called police to the gallery because

Day 34: The jury has still not been sent away, the waiting is becoming excruciating for the boys.

The judge has finished his summary, but he has gone through all the evidence again in quite a lot of detail, it took yesterday and today. It looks like it will still be open to any corrections in the morning. Then the jury will retire.

We have heard the same evidence, over and over and over again. The amount of repetition in this case is boring everyone, many of the jury look bored and done with it.

The boys have started to say they think

Day 32: A LONG THREAD 🧵 but what’s a bit of reading for boys whose lives are on the line due to racist ‘gangs’ policing?

Closing defence statements for Boys 6-9 today. I’ll start with Boy 9 as I love his barrister 😂 he seems to have good politics and is a joy to listen to. (No shade if he sees this but I do a good impression of his theatrics).

Boy 9. Rugby player, American footballer, doing well in college. Not a part of violence, no weapons, no vids, no lyrics.

Defence leans in and says to the jury ‘for the hour it’s YOU, ME, and HIM’ (Boy 9 😂)

Day 31: Closing statements for Boy 4 and 5. A reminder, Boy 4 is the boy who gave the fire in the thread below!

Boy 4 wasn’t present at ANY of the attacks to do with this ‘conspiracy’, he wasn’t in the telegram. ‘Evidence’ against him are lyrics (he raps in the M40 music group)

https://twitter.com/RoxyLegane/status/1509274952163377155

a knife and bullet casing found at arrest (many in the music group pose with things for vids. There’s no evidence to show he carried or used, no guns found, no one shot), a cell siting in Rochdale but NOTHING to show that is attached to anything.

Highlights of his statement:

Day 30: Defence teams start their closing statements, Boy 1-3 were completed today. Boy 1s defence covered a lot of important ground for the 10 of them.

A LONG thread 🧵 but not long to go now. The first point Boy 1s defence make is the important reality, these are/were BOYS. “You are judging the actions and behaviours of children. You’ll have teenagers in your families, they don’t think before they act. That develops. But it’s not just about immature behaviour, but how immaturely they speak. Conversations examined are that or bravado and exaggeration

GMP announce more £ to ‘target county lines’. They boast about arrests and say they’ll ‘ensure exploiters are prosecuted and the exploited are protected’

If you’ve followed my tweets on the trial, you’ll see how young victims of drug trafficking are treated. They’re prosecuted. Was Boy 3 not vulnerable when he was excluded from school, became homeless, lived in the car parks of Piccadilly Gardens, and unable to find work started selling drugs for someone who told him where and when to go? Was Boy 6 not vulnerable when he needed money, agreed to meet

Day 29: A BIT of HOPE. Prosecution closing statements began. When Boy 4 was arrested, a bullet CASING was found near him (he says not his).

Today, the JURY asked the JUDGE to remind the PROSECUTOR it was bullet CASING found, NOT bullets: the prosecutor had closed saying BULLETS. The prosecutor was asked to change his language 🔥. Maybe them caring about that key difference is hopeful. It could mean nothing, of course, but I take hope where we can.

Anyway, obv today was GANG, GANG GANG, DRILL GANG, GANG. DRILL Etc.

It was SO boring, yawns ACROSS court.

Back in court tomorrow for the last 2 weeks. I wish the boys didn’t have to return. The break feels cruel, whether it meant more days without freedom on remand, or *some* normality on bail now stopping again.

This case sets a concerning precedent for the policing of grief. At every stage of this indictment period it feels like there could have been another way. Imagine what things could have been like.

If when their friend was killed, the community could have been filled with detached youth workers and the affected colleges/schools/youth centres

Day 27: Today, evidence was complete. We now break until the 27th. When back, closing statements, judge’s directions, and the jury leaves to decide.

I wasn’t prepared for the wave of emotion that came as all evidence closed.

That’s it. The boys have done everything they can do. This has been going on for over a year, and now it’s in other people’s hands.

A bizarre feeling, is that I’ll really miss the boys over this period. It’s been nearly six weeks of spending each day with them, and there have been joyous moments every day regardless of context.

Tomorrow, a truly wonderful young person takes the stand.

I remember over a year ago when we were at the police station, and he nicely said to an officer ‘not all police are bad’. The officer said ‘maybe you should join us!’.

The audacity, knowing the plan they had for him. Many of you across Manchester will have heard him speak at one of our events years ago. You laughed with him, listened to his critical contributions.

He has done incredible things for this city, and for its young people, but tomorrow, he will fight the label ‘gang member’.

Day 23-25: We returned back to Boy 6, who was on the stand on and off for 3 days.

Boy 6 admits being present at violence on the 5 Nov 20, and pleaded guilty to violent disorder (a charge/incidents already dealt with in court).

Now I do believe these boys, that what… happened on the 5th was not a series of ‘gang’ events, but recklessness that led to a dreadful outcome.

In the day on the 5th, a minority of the boys on trial went to town and chased a boy who robbed Boy 6s brother. They piled on with kicks, then ran, but one used a knife.

No thread will convey how angry and upset I felt in court today.

With others, I’ve been there all but one day, for five weeks. Many we know have come to support across that time. We have made a caring, supportive public gallery for ourselves. But, we have to control our emotion. As black and brown people, we have watched these boys been torn into. It has been traumatic, anger inducing, upsetting… but we know we have to be on ‘best behaviour’. We don’t want anything we do to damage the boys.

Up to today, we have had NO police presence in our gallery.

This is the ‘M40 gang’ discussed in court, this music group. I think only 4 of the 10 boys are in this video. When you hear them talk about their music, lyrics, instrumentals, studio time, it’s interesting. It’s their hobby, and they had hope for it.

Those who are in the music group say they are a music group, and a small minority also admit to harm they’ve caused - both things can be true at once without it being a ‘gang’.

Their friend who was killed was the best rapper. Now dead, he is allegedly the ‘head of the M40 gang’.

Exclusion is a common theme across boys in this trial. As mentioned before, the boy who was excluded and became homeless so had to sell drugs, but also others. One who was excluded and family say he felt like all structure was gone, sent to a PRU where he was treated poorly. Then two boys excluded after the first harm in this case, chasing a student on campus. Imagine if they’d been brought closer, maybe the worse harms could have been prevented.

But there’s also the exclusions that are just dumb. Boy 10, always done well at school, told me he was…

Day 21/22 in court: Due to COVID there’s been some shuffling of defendant order. I know boys 7-10, 6 & 7 haven’t been able to go, so over the last two days we went 9 then 8.

What you see now is things move more quickly, because as you go down the list, evidence becomes even more limited and farcical.

So Boy 9. He said ‘I’m going to change my hair for the stand’ and he came in beaming with his Afro out from cornrows, acting shy as we all said he looked beautiful.

(He’s changing it back soon, I think too many of us elders told him he looked beautiful 😂)

This boy continued the next morning, and again we were all struggling not to clap.

At one point he said ‘People say they don’t like the Prime Minister and they wish something would happen to him, they’re not intending to do anything’

https://twitter.com/RoxyLegane/status/1509274952163377155

The prosecutor quoted back his text (in which the boy says he’s talking about how North Manchester has no drill talent left).

The prosecutor says ‘“after our generation there’s no hope for the north, but them man got bagged” that’s you talking about violence isn’t it?’

Day 18: Boy 4 takes the stand, he has one chance to defend himself and he uses it 🔥. I don’t know how it will be taken - a racist would say ‘aggressive’ - but he remained calm, and showed continually how smart he is.

I don’t know this boy, but my word I liked him a lot. Harm he WAS/accepts involvement in was on Nov 5 20, that’s been to court, but that’s the day prosecution say a WHOLE ‘conspiracy’ started. For this conspiracy, evidence on him is mostly texts, lyrics, pictures of him posing with knives for drill videos.

He denies conspiracy.

Day 17: one of the hardest, and a real example of why we should not be excluding young people from education (@NExclusions) and why the policing of ‘county lines’ is so dangerous, because there will never be victims of harm in the state’s eyes when it comes to black young people Today, boy 3 took the stand.

Now this is NOT a drugs case, but it is a ‘gangs’ case. So, to maintain the idea of a ‘gang’ the prosecution had to bring in ‘gang activities’, regardless of what they’re on trial for. So some of the narrative for a few boys has been drug sales.