Acquitted of Murder and Convicted of Manslaughter

Our client was charged along with seven others of murder. The prosecution case was that another co-defendant had been robbed by a gang earlier in the day. The co-defendant had phones, money and other items stolen in the robbery, and the killing was said to be a revenge attack.

All the defendants but for one met at an address where “find my iPhone” was activated to find the location of the co-defendant’s stolen phones. The defendants travelled to the vicinity of the location in various vehicles, and there they saw the vehicle used by the robbers earlier. At some point the murder weapon was obtained and a shooting took place.

We tested the evidence by instructing our own imaging expert to consider the CCTV and a telephone data analyst to consider the telecommunications evidence, though an expert was not required to give evidence.

After a lengthy trial our client was acquitted of murder but found guilty of manslaughter. The starting point for a murder conviction with a gun is life imprisonment with a minimum term of 30 years, so the difference in sentence was extremely significant for our client. Two other defendants await sentence for murder, three for manslaughter.

Rachel Hobba was the solicitor with conduct of this case. Katy Thorne QC of Doughty Street Chambers was leading Counsel and David Kitson our in-house advocate was her junior.