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In 1846, two drunk delivery drivers, John Swindall and James Osborne were racing carts heavy with pottery materials through Staffordshire when they struck and killed an elderly walker.

The court jailed them both, saying both their actions had caused the manslaughter of James Durose – a decision that became known in law as “joint enterprise”.

171 years later, a mother in Manchester is holding a picture of her teenage son, taken before he was convicted of murder and sent to prison for 20 years.

“My heart goes out to the mother who lost her son,” Louise Campbell says of the family of Abdulwahab Hafidah, the 18-year-old boy who was murdered on May 12 last year.

“I am all for justice. But my son was convicted of murder without actually touching him. You can see him backing away from what was happening. He couldn’t have known another boy was going to commit a murder.”

(Image: Daily Mirror)

Louise’s conclusion is stark. “We can only think that Durell was convicted because of the colour of his skin and the fact he lived in Moss Side.”

Once used to stop aristocrats from duelling, research from Cambridge and Manchester Met Universities suggests Joint Enterprise is now used disproportionately against young, working class black men – aided by a racialised ‘gang’ narrative.

Today a group of cross-party MPs supported a motion on Joint Enterprise brought by Louise’s MP Lucy Powell in the House of Commons.

“Using Joint Enterprise allows the prosecution to lower the evidential bar, and depends mainly on a gang narrative which involves loose friendship groups or casual associations,” she says.

(Image: Daily Mirror)

“In the age of social media being a Facebook friend, or receiving a text from a perpetrator, can be enough for someone to be charged and incarcerated for life.”

“We don't use the term ‘gangs’ to talk about the Bullingdon Club ,” David Lammy MP told Parliament.

“But we do use ‘gangs’ when we talk about groups of young men in my constituency. Joint Enterprise creates miscarriages of justice and erodes trust in the criminal justice system.”

Chuka Umunna MP also heavily criticised “huge racial disparities”, pointing that 37% of those serving long sentences for Joint Enterprise are black – “11 times the proportion of the population”.

(Image: Daily Mirror)

Three months before Abdulwahab Hafidah was killed the Supreme Court had ruled that the law had “taken a wrong turn” when it came to joint enterprise.

Yet Manchester and Preston Crown Courts convicted seven young people of murder, four of manslaughter. All those convicted were collectively sentenced to 168 years on 14th September 2017. The youngest was 14 years old. Durell was 19.

On the day of Hafidah’s murder last year, Durell had been playing football in Broadfield Park with his cousin.

“He was studying business and management at college and helping his granddad out with his painting and decorating business,” says Louise, 42, a school catering assistant.

“He’d been in minor trouble with the police as a younger teenager that had led to him being referred to the Youth Offending Team, but they called him one of their success stories.”

A year before the murder, Durell had been the victim of an attack by masked men which resulted in being hospitalised with a broken arm, beaten by baseball bats. Hafidah had been questioned by police over the attack, but Durell hadn’t seen his attackers.

May 12 last year was sweltering. After playing football, Durell headed home to change his clothes. As he left the park he stopped to talk to a group of boys, when a young man he knew pulled up in a car and shouted ‘get in’.

The car stopped at the scene of a fight. Witness statements say the victim had been punched and kicked by a group and then stabbed twice to the neck by 20-year-old Devonte Cantrell. Hafidah died two days later in hospital. His parents called his murder “a senseless act of brutality”.

Louise weeps when she says that when her son was arrested, she told him to “trust in the process” and to trust the police.

“On the CCTV, you can see him immediately backing away, removing himself from the situation,” she says. “He never touches him or encourages anything. How can he be guilty of murder?”

In court, she says the prosecution used racist gang stereotypes to get a conviction.

“It started from the moment the trial began, when the prosecution read out a list of around 50 names that were allegedly associated with gangs and asked if anyone on the jury had a connection. There were two trials and two juries, all 24 people were white. All the defendants bar one were black or mixed race.”

The prosecution claimed Durell was in a Moss Side gang, that they called ‘Active Only’, and that the attack was revenge for the baseball bat attack on Durell.

“My son wasn’t in a gang and did not know who attacked him,” Louise says.

“They built up this narrative very carefully using very specific language.”

Durell was given a mandatory life sentence of 20 years.

The boy who died was a childhood friend of Salman Abedi , the Manchester arena attacker, and his sister suggested on social media that the murder had helped to radicalise him.

“Our lives have been turned upside down,” Louise says.

Campaign group Joint Enterprise Not Guilty by Association (JENGbA) is currently working with more than 1,000 prisoners who are maintaining their innocence, having been convicted of murder or manslaughter under Joint Enterprise.

In 2014, Jimmy McGovern made a drama, Common, after meeting with prisoners' families and becoming a patron.

“My son is now in his third prison,” Louise says. “He spent his 21st birthday in the chapel. He’ll be in his 40s when he comes out after wasting his life for someone else’s actions. I believe in taking responsibility for your own actions, but not for someone else’s.”