This January should have been a time of celebration for Christopher Kapessa and his family. He would have turned 18 and, as a bright and ambitious young person, may have been preparing for university or an interesting career. He should have had a long and happy life to look forward to.
Instead, his relatives have listened in a coroner’s court in south Wales as the circumstances of the black boy’s harrowing death at the age of 13 in the River Cynon, after he was allegedly pushed into the deep water by a 14-year-old white boy, have been examined in painful detail.
“It was so difficult celebrating what would have been Christopher’s 18th birthday and him not being here,” said his mother, Alina Joseph, who has battled for the truth of what happened to her son to come to light since his death in the summer of 2019.
She has watched as Christopher’s contemporaries passed their driving tests and reached the legal age to have a drink in a pub with their mates. “I attended a birthday party of one of Christopher’s friends and saw how tall he’d grown. He’d become a man. It was really sad and very painful,” she said. “Christopher remains stuck at the age of 13. He can’t do the normal things that 18-year-olds are doing. Every year he would have reached a certain milestone. Christopher had so much going for him. He was at the beginning of his life.”
Joseph believes her son, who was not a confident swimmer, was unlawfully killed by the older boy, who can be named for the first time as Jayden Pugh, now 19.
She thinks South Wales police initially failed to take the case seriously, leaping too quickly to the conclusion it had been a tragic accident, and is angry the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) judged there was enough evidence to prosecute Pugh – but decided it was not in the public interest to do so, citing his age and good character.
Joseph, and race campaigners who have supported her, argue that had the roles been reversed and a black teenager had pushed a white youngster into the river, he would have been taken to court. They claim the decision highlights institutional racism.
“First of all the police came to my house and said there was nothing sinister in Christopher’s death,” said Joseph. “It was a tragic accident. There were failures in the way they handled it.
“But then the CPS found enough evidence to prosecute over Christopher’s death. Christopher was the only black child among 16 or so children who were there. It’s totally wrong. I know for a fact if it was the other way round, if the tables were turned, if all those children were black and Christopher was a white child, I wouldn’t be sat here talking to you.
“I wouldn’t be going back and forth trying to fight the system to try to get justice for Christopher. Why is justice different for a black person that it is for a white person? The CPS’s conclusion [was] they wanted to protect the person responsible for putting Christopher in the river. Who’s protecting Christopher and giving him justice? The police are there to investigate a crime properly, the CPS is there to convict those who have committed a criminal offence. For me, it doesn’t make sense. The CPS found enough evidence in 2019. There should be a prosecution. That would be the right thing to do.”
Joseph ran out of the inquest in distress during Pugh’s evidence, when he denied pushing Christopher and insisted it had been an accident and he “fell into” him, causing him to plunge into the water. Pugh added there was no racial motivation.
“As he said that I saw a visual image of Christopher flying into the water. It was so vivid and so intense. It took my breath away. I couldn’t breathe. I felt that Christopher was scared. The image I saw was a child scared as he was flying and going into the water.”
Christopher was described by Joseph as a loving, caring and passionate boy who always helped her around the house. He was clever – excellent at maths – and passionate about football and video games. “He always gave 100%.”
He was born in north London but in 2011 Joseph and her family moved to south Wales after suffering domestic violence, the inquest heard, at first living in a women’s refuge before being housed in Hirwaun, a village at the north end of the Cynon Valley about 30 miles from Cardiff.
In a statement read out during the inquest, Joseph said the family had suffered “horrific” racist treatment that began with them being sent hate mail and having their home daubed with graffiti. She said her children were subject to verbal and physical attacks, with Christopher once ending up in hospital. She told the inquest that she stopped reporting incidents to South Wales police because they took no action.
“There was no point in calling South Wales police … We didn’t feel protected,” she said. “What was the point of dialling 999?”
On 19 May 2018, there was a fire at their house, which the family believe was started deliberately and the family moved to Mountain Ash, a little further down the Cynon Valley.
Christopher seemed to be finding his feet at Mountain Ash comprehensive and signed up for the local football club. He was popular, always trying to make people laugh and went out to friends’ houses and on cinema trips. He started to become interested in fashion, liking skinny trousers and Vans shoes. His mother said he still suffered some bullying and racism but was coping.
On the afternoon he died – 1 July 2019 – Joseph said he came home from school at about 3.35pm and changed out of his uniform. “I asked him where he was going and he said he was going to play football. I said: ‘All right’ and he went.”
She did not know he was at the river and the first she knew of what had happened was one of his siblings running up saying: “Come quick, come quick, Christopher jumped off a bridge.” His body was pulled out the river at about 7.25pm, about two hours after he went into the water.
At first police believed accounts from people who were there that it was an accident. But it seemed out of character for Christopher to put himself in danger in water. Joseph said Christopher was not a confident swimmer. “He would stay in shallow areas in the swimming pool,” she said.
A week or so later, police began to hear rumours that Christopher may have been pushed by Pugh and launched a manslaughter investigation. South Wales police referred their evidence, including video statements taken from 16 children who were at the river, to the CPS but it decided not to prosecute.
Campaigners, including the anti-racist Monitoring Group, which has supported Joseph from the start, said the case showed that lessons had not been learned from the Stephen Lawrence case. The Monitoring Group continues to argue not that there definitely was a racist motive but that the circumstances have not been tested in a criminal court.
Police are alarmed at the comparisons to the Stephen Lawrence case. In court, the senior investigating officer, Matt Powell, raised concern that a “narrative” was built up suggesting Christopher’s death was a racist killing.
The accusation rankles. Joseph said: “During our campaign it was evident the police were more focused on investigating the family, investigating the people giving us support and people helping the campaign, rather than doing their job.”
