R v Oni and others (Justice intervening) 2025
The appellants were convicted of conspiracy offences relating to a feud between two gangs, M40 and RTD, after the murder of John Soyoye, a member of M40. With the appellants, Oni, Ojo, and Jitoboh, convicted of conspiracy to murder members of RTD. The other appellants Thomas, Adedeji, Savi, and Okoya were convicted of conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm with intent to members of RTD.
Key evidence included a Telegram group chat discussing revenge attacks and sharing information about targets. The Appellants argued the judge wrongly treated the conspiracies to murder and cause grievous bodily harm as one, and improperly admitted evidence between the two. The Appellants challenged the judge's directions on using guilty pleas as evidence against co-defendants. Adedeji challenged the admission of "cash by the ear" photos and identification evidence.
The Prosecution argued there was one agreement to take violent revenge, with defendants joining with differing intentions to kill or cause grievous bodily harm. On sentence, the appellants argued the judge took into account violence from the separate murder conspiracy and failed to reflect their limited roles.
Held
Appeals against conviction dismissed, except for Adedeji whose conviction was quashed.
The appeals against conviction were dismissed, except for Adedeji whose conviction was quashed and no retrial ordered. The appeals against sentence for Savi and Okoya were allowed and their sentences were reduced to 4 years and 6 months' detention.
The court determined that it is permissible to prosecute overlapping conspiracies with the same course of conduct but different intentions (murder vs. grievous bodily harm). The judge's directions on using guilty pleas and acts/statements of co-conspirators as evidence were not flawed in this case.
However, the judge erred in treating the two conspiracies as one when directing on admissibility of evidence between them. But this did not render the convictions unsafe given the jury's verdicts and other admissible evidence. Adedeji's conviction was quashed due to fresh evidence showing the video identification was incorrect. The "cash by the ear" photos were properly admitted as relevant to gang membership. On sentence, the judge wrongly sentenced Savi and Okoya based on the higher culpability and harm of the separate murder conspiracy, failing to reflect their lesser roles in planning the attacks.
Reproduced with permission of Reed Elsevier (UK) Limited, trading as LexisNexis.
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