A British court has reversed a ruling that left a Black teenager locked up and sentenced to 18 months in a youth offenders’ facility after he stabbed two other men.
After an appeal, officials recognized the boy was being provoked by the “victims,” who hurled racial and homophobic insults at him.
Lord Justice Dingemans from the Court of Appeal in London reviewed the case of Ibrahim Sarjo, 18, who pleaded guilty to two counts of wounding without intent and possession of a knife after stabbing Anthony Sweeney and Raymond Watkins while hanging out with two females friends, one summer night.
On Friday, June 17, Sarjo and his crew were in Liverpool City Centre around 7:30 p.m. when he encountered Sweeney and Watkins. When the two saw Sarjo, without provocation, they called him the N-word and other slurs, the Liverpool Echo reports.
Reports say the young man tried to ignore the men and walk away with his female friends, but both Sweeney and Watkins chased him to the Queen Square bus station and instigated a fight. They did not know Sarjo was armed. During the confrontation, he pulled out his blade and defended himself.
When the case was brought to court on Oct. 14, Sarjo accepted responsibility for his actions, admitting to the crime. He was sentenced to a year and a half at the young offenders’ institution at Liverpool Crown Court.
Over the past three months, the teen’s legal team, led by Julian Nutter, submitted the case for appeal, claiming the teen was a victim of vicious racial taunting and bullying, and it now has achieved a radical reversal.
Dingemans wrote in a judgment, “As [Sarjo] walked past Anthony Sweeney and Raymond Watkins, who had been visiting Liverpool and drinking, Mr. Sweeney racially abused [Sarjo], saying: ‘Girls like white boys better than Black’ and called [Sarjo] the N-word. This was properly described by the prosecution before the judge as ‘ugly, shameful, and highly provocative.’”
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