“X FACTOR STAR’S KILLER COUSINS”

“X FACTOR STAR’S KILLER COUSINS”

 

...is the front page headline of today’s The Sun.  The X factor competitor Sterling Ramsay and his group Rough Copy were last weekend chosen by Gary Barlow represent him in the live shows. So The Sun does its muck raking and discovers his cousins are in prison convicted of the murder of Tarek Chaiboub in Spital Hill, Sheffield in 2008.

 

What The Sun does not say is that they are serving life sentences because they were convicted under joint enterprise.  In fact Nigel Ramsey, even though he was in prison at the time of the shooting, was still convicted and given a minimum 35 year sentence.  One would imagine that for someone to receive such a long sentence there must have been damning evidence against him.  What was the evidence used against Nigel?  A phone call from prison to his brother Denzil 4 hours before the shooting. 

 

Using joint enterprise means this type of tenuous evidence is put to the court, the suggestion being that Nigel was 'calling the shots'.  Which is another ‘fact’ the Sun want the public to believe – that they were ‘gang’ members.  They were not and nor did they shoot Tarek.  The police called them the S3 gang; this is the South Yorkshire Police, those bastions of truth and justice that are still trying to dodge the corruption that led them to cover up the evidence of incompetence surrounding the deaths of  96 Liverpool supporters.  The Sun, to this day is hated by Liverpudlians and not bought by them because they printed the lies the South Yorkshire Police force were trying to promote.

 

So let JENGbA set some of the record straight when it comes to the Ramseys who we are supporting along with their family who are fighting to prove their innocence.  The evidence against them was that Nigel called his brother from prison to settle a score with a ‘gang’ rival.  No evidence was presented in court as to the conversation the brothers had, just cell site to say they had spoken.  This is the first assumption.

 

 Denzil and his friends were captured on CCTV in Meadowhall wearing bright coloured T. shirts less than 2 hours before the shooting, yet witnesses said Tarek was shot by men wearing black clothing and balaclavas.  The police said they left the mall changed their clothes and shot Tarek in Spital Hill but the time frame makes this impossible.  Here is the second misleading assumption. 

 

The main evidence used by the police against the first four defendants was a gun that the police found hidden in a local park which they claimed was the murder weapon.  There was no forensic evidence, DNA or otherwise on this gun to link it to Denzil (couldn't have been Nigel as he is inside a prison) or his other co-defendants yet the police insisted they must have hidden it there.  The third and most damning assumption.

 

So the ‘evidence’ used was tenuous at best, not helped by the fact the Sheffield Star the local rag, damned them from the outset of the trial using information that could only have been fed to them by the police.  A common practice but not one that many people realise.

 

However, there was a second trial and five more men were charged with Tarek’s murder using a joint enterprise manslaughter charge.  Remember, little or no real evidence is needed in these multi-handed trials; it is purely guilt by association and if you put five black men in the dock and call them a gang repeatedly, especially with a postcode name S3 which is simply where the Ramsey brothers lived,  that is what the jury chose to believe. The police don't lie do they? Nor would a highly educated prosecutor working for the CPS.  Nigel and Denzil's mum Shirley attended court to watch the second trial desperate to see if any evidence was used in this trial that could be used in her sons’ appeal. She knew they were innocent and was completely baffled as to how they had been found guilty.  She was right, there was. A lawyer in the second trial used a different forensic expert regarding the gun the Police had said was the murder weapon.  This expert said that the bullet from the victim could not have been fired from this weapon as it was to all intents useless and incapable of firing anything. After this gem of a revelation the prosecution’s case against those five innocent men was dismissed.

 

This ‘gem’ gave the Ramsey family hope. If the gun that the police and prosecutors claim was the murder weapon was in fact fabricated evidence then it should not have been used in their trial either.  This was seemingly solid grounds for appeal and JENGbA was with the family when they came to London for Nigel and Denzil's appeal to the Royal Courts of Justice in 2011.

 

The Appeal Judges listened to the argument but would not let the forensic expert at the second trial address them, even though the appeal lawyers wanted them to hear his testimony and explain his findings. The judges came to their decision literally in a matter of minutes.  Appeal dismissed. Their judgement was that the lawyers in the original trial should have used a better forensic expert!  So Nigel Ramsey is serving 35 years for a phone call and Denzil 25 years for being in a made up gang by the police with no proof he was at the scene or committed the murder. This is when JENGbA realised how shocking decisions can be made in the court of Appeal.  Shocking is one word for what we witnessed - corruption is another.

 

The Ramsey family are still fighting to get Justice for their boys and JENGbA will support them all the way. Their case is typical of the lengths the police and prosecution will go to secure convictions.  And while we all wish Nigel and Denzil's cousin and Rough Copy all the best for success on the X factor, Sterling should stand up for them, because they are not killers and papers like the Sun are one of the reasons prisoners like them and the hundreds of other innocent men and women  are serving such lengthy sentences in the first place. They will they print the lies the Police want the public to believe, they will print the lies the State want the public to believe, and sadly the public believes it because the police and prosecutors don't lie - do they? 

 

 

This is a picture of Nigel and Denzil - it is very different to the one shown in the paper, another little ploy of the media to show how 'criminal' the killers look.  Please contact them to show your support for their struggle.

 

Denzel Ramsay, A6690AD,
Nigel Ramsay, A8154AG, both at
HMP Whitemoor, Longhill Road, March, Cambs PE15 0PR