These men had their conviction for attempted child abduction overturned - here"s the bizarre reason why
Two men have had their conviction for attempting to abduct a child from a school overturned after a judge decided it was just a ‘stupid prank’ and had no ‘sinister motive’.
Tariq Alsamaan and Carlton Tebbs dressed as security guards in a plan of ‘crass stupidity’ at Wellacre Academy in Flixton, Trafford, in 2016.
They told staff they had been hired to take a pupil home because he was being bullied, and wanted to speak to him.
Alsamaan told reception staff the boy needed to be escorted to and from school by security officers from now on.
Tariq Alsamaan
But their plan unravelled when the school’s headteacher became suspicious and called police.
A court heard Alsamaan, then 21, was the ringleader and met Tebbs, then a 22-year-old shelf stacker from Scotland, through online gaming.
Alsamaan claimed he liked to play heroic versions of himself in fantasy games to escape his ‘low self-image’ in the real world.
The pair were convicted of attempted child abduction at Manchester Crown Court last December and given suspended jail sentences.
After an appeal, the convictions of both men were quashed by Lord Justice Treacy.
Manchester Crown Court
The trial judge was said to have made ‘mistakes’ which meant the convictions were ‘unsafe’.
Addressing Mr Alsamaan, who was in court, Lord Treacy said: “You were extremely stupid, as was Mr Tebbs.
“You behaved wholly irresponsibly. You should be ashamed of yourself.
“But your conviction is quashed because the directions given by the judge to the jury were insufficient.”
The court heard Alsamaan, from Stretford, Trafford, and Tebbs, from Invergordon in the Scottish Highlands, spoke via Skype, but only met twice in person before embarking on their ‘prank’.
Carlton Tebbs
They told staff they wanted to see the boy to ask him questions about his having hired security guards to defend him from bullies.
But the headteacher knew the boy was not being bullied and when the child went to the office, told him to stay outside.
When police arrived, the men continued to claim they were genuine security guards.
They soon admitted the truth and were arrested and charged.
The pair insisted they never had any intention of taking the boy away from the control of his teachers.
Tariq Alsamaan
At the Court of Appeal, their lawyers argued they had been wrongly convicted because of unfair legal directions by the judge to the jury.
Lord Justice Treacy ruled the legal instructions were unbalanced and made the convictions unsafe.
“The directions given in this case had a strong tendency to be applied adversely to the interests of these appellants in a way that wasn’t warranted,” he said.
“In those circumstances, we find that the convictions are unsafe and, accordingly, allow the appeals in each case.
“This is a case where it was not seriously disputed by the crown that this was some form of stupid prank.
“It is a case where the crown did not seek to show that it was the intention of the appellants to remove the boy from the school.”
Alsamaan, who was in court for the hearing, broke down in tears when the judge told him his conviction would be overturned.
Speaking outside court afterwards, he said he was full of remorse for what he did and that the experience had been the worst of his life.
“I would just like to say I am sorry to the school, the parents, the Crown Court and the Court of Appeal for the chaos my actions caused,” he said.
The appeal judge refused to order a retrial.
He said that since the matter had already wasted enough court time - and that the men had no ‘sinister motive’ - a retrial was not in the interests of justice.
Source: https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/men-conviction-attempted-child-abduction-14935684
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