The mother of a 14-year-old boy stabbed to death in Birmingham last year said the “justice system has let me down”, after a teenager was sentenced to six years and six months in detention for his killing.
The 15-year-old defendant, who cannot be named for legal reasons due to his age, was acquitted of murder but found guilty of manslaughter after a trial that heard he was part of a group who had “hunted down” Dea-John Reid in May last year.
The victim’s mother, Joan Morris, said she felt her son had been “hunted by a lynch mob reminiscent of a scene from Mississippi Burning”.
Passing sentence at Birmingham crown court on Friday, Mr Justice Johnson said Dea-John “stood no chance” against the defendant, who was responsible for the fatal stab wound.
“He was unarmed, he was no threat to you,” he said. “The CCTV shows that there was a concerted chase of Dea-John, which was led by you. If an adult did what you did then that would almost certainly be murder and they would be sentenced to life imprisonment.”
The defendant will serve half his sentence in custody, the judge said, after earlier rejecting an application to lift an order protecting the identity of the boy.
He stood trial alongside George Khan, 39, Michael Shields, 36, and two teenagers aged 15 and 16, who were all acquitted of murder.
In a statement read out in court, Morris said: “The verdict of manslaughter, while all the others are found not guilty, just goes to prove to me that the life of Dea-John Reid, my son, a young black man, doesn’t matter.
“I was told that justice will prevail, and I put my trust in the system, but I do sincerely believe that this system has let me down.”
Speaking outside court, Bishop Desmond Jaddoo, a community activist and spokesperson for Dea-John’s family, said a “Justice for Dea-John Reid” campaign would be launching soon.
“This trial has raised more questions than answers,” he said. “While welcoming that someone has been held to account for causing Dea-John’s death, it tells us how this system is not geared up to give black people justice.”
During the trial, the prosecutor, Richard Wormald QC, said on 31 May 2021 the group of five had behaved “like a pack chasing down their prey” as they carried out a “revenge attack” for an incident earlier in the day, in which Dea-John was part of a group who tried to rob the 16-year-old defendant.
The jury rejected the defendant’s claims he had been acting in self-defence, with the judge saying “earlier events provided a motive but did not amount to immediate provocation”.
Dea-John was subjected to racist abuse by some members of the group before his death, with one member calling for him to be “banged out”.
“His civil rights were completely abused,” said Jaddoo. “We have been told that we have no recourse to deal with that.”
Footage of the moment Dea-John was attacked, on a busy road in Kingstanding, north Birmingham, in broad daylight, showed him being chased before stopping after running out of breath.
The defendant, wearing a balaclava and gloves, stabbed Dea-John using a kitchen knife he had taken from a friend’s house. Dea-John was killed by a single stab wound to the chest that punctured his heart . He died at the scene.
Hundreds of people attended a vigil in the days after the attack, which inflamed community tensions after reports of the racial abuse directed at Dea-John before his killing.
