Teen accused of conspiracy to murder claimed he 'needed to take revenge’ for friend’s death, trial hears

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

A teenager has claimed he 'needed to take revenge’ for the death of his friend, a trial has heard. Manchester Crown Court earlier heard that Alexander John Soyoye was killed on Bonfire Night 2020 by members of or those affiliated to the Release the Danger (RTD) gang.

Ten teenagers who were said to be members of rival gang, the Moston -based M40, of which John was said to have been their ‘leader’, are on trial facing allegations of conspiracy to commit murder.

Prosecutors earlier said that they wanted to ‘avenge’ the death of John and a number of messages on social media, as well as ‘drill rap’ lyrics written by some of the teenagers, suggested they were planning various attacks. READ MORE: "He was our rock..." - Emotional tributes to businessman and dad-of-three who suffered fatal heart attack after catching professional criminals targeting his premises Gideon Kalumda, 20, Jeffrey Ojo, 20, Harry Oni, 18, Brooklyn Jitoboh, 18, Simon Thorne, 18, Martin Thomas Junior, 19, Ademola Adedeji, 18, Omolade Okoya, 19, Raymond Savi, 19 and Azim Okunula, 19, are on trial at Manchester Crown Court.

Giving evidence, Mr Oni accepted that he had entered a guilty plea to the other offence he is charged with, namely conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm.