Cynon Valley MP Beth Winter has led calls for solidarity with the family of Christopher Kapessa, the Black teen from South Wales who died after being pushed into a river in July 2019. The campaign for justice was re-launched this month with an online meeting which the MP addressed.
Winter has now put down an Early Day Motion (EDM) which singles out South Wales Police (SWP) and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) over their dismal response to the death, which has been labelled as institutionally racist by Christopher’s mother Alina Joseph.
Christopher was surrounded by 14 of his white peers when he drowned in the River Cynon near Mountain Ash, where he lived and in the constituency of Beth Winter. But the cops only interviewed 4 people who were there, failed to gather key evidence or secure the crime scene and declared his death a ‘tragic accident’ within 48 hours.
Outrage from the family and their supporters led to a second investigation, after which the CPS effectively dropped the case, even though there was sufficient evidence to support a manslaughter charge.
The new motion hits out at South Wales Police and acknowledges Alina Joseph’s assertion that institutional racism was a key factor in how the case was handled from the outset. It also ‘expresses alarm’ at the CPS over its decision that it was “not in the public interest” to seek a prosecution over the death despite their own admission that sufficient evidence did exist to bring a charge of manslaughter. One reason cited by the CPS for not taking the case forward was the good school record of a potential suspect in the case.
The EDM has been backed by 17 MPs so far, including former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and former Shadow Home Secretary Dianne Abbot, and the family are asking people to put pressure on their MP to put their name on the motion. So far Beth Winter is the only Welsh MP to have signed.
“When I heard what happened, my heart went out to the family,” Beth Winter said. “My selfish reaction was to ask what if that was my child? How would I cope? A beautiful happy child with their whole life ahead of them having their life cut short.”
She said that this was not about punishment but about finding the truth in an open and transparent way.
A year ago, Christopher’s mother Alina Joseph said that South Wales cops, have “failed me and they continue to fail Black families.”
Speaking this month, she said that the impact of Christopher’s death on the family has been “devastating.”
“We won’t be able to see Christopher finish his GCSEs, graduate, have a career, marry, become a father. Just the normal things that we as human beings value” she said. “Every time I hear the word Christopher my heart breaks. I’ve lost the future. We’ve lost the future.”
She pleaded for people to support the campaign to get justice for her son to “prevent a similar situation happening to another Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic family.”
Previously MS Joseph has said that she had to fight to “establish the truth against the disbelief and the culture of institutional racism of South Wales Police” and that the approach of the police and the CPS would have been different, “if it was a white child who drowned while surrounded by 14 black youth”
South Wales Police are also facing widescale outrage and protest over the death of Mohamud Hassan, the 24 year Black man from Cardiff who died after being held overnight in Cardiff Bay Police Station and returning home with injuries and blood stains on his clothes.
To donate to the campaign, see the EDM and watch the online meeting see: https://linktr.ee/JusticeForChristopherKapessa
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