Reflecting on Manchester Criminal Prosecutions: A panel event

• Jade Akoum, sister of Yousef Makki, campaigner

• David Conn, The Guardian

• Professor Eithne Quinn, The University of Manchester

• Pete Weatherby KC, Garden Court North

• Dr Patrick Williams, Harm to Healing Coalition

This is an in-person event only.

This panel centres the experiences of Jade Akoum, the sister of Yousef Makki who was killed in 2019 in a Manchester suburb at the age of 17. Jade will reflect on the long, traumatic battle of her family through different processes in the legal system that finally led, in 2023, to an inquest ruling that Yousef had been unlawfully killed. Pete Weatherby KC represented the Makki family at this inquest.

This high-profile case offers an important lens through which to consider problems in the approach of the criminal legal system for working-class and racially-minoritised people. It also serves as a counterpoint, as repeatedly cited in parliament, to other controversial Manchester prosecutions in which strategies of collective punishment can harm young people.

This panel asks what the Makki family's experiences tell us about legal system faultlines, and what reforms are needed to promote justice and equity in (and beyond) the courts.

This is the final event of the Simon Fellowship of award-winning, Manchester-born journalist David Conn at The University of Manchester, who is conducting a project with researchers on ‘Promoting Truth-finding in the Adversarial Court System’, with a particular focus on the North West region.

For more information please contact Professor Eithne Quinn

Jade Akoum is a campaigner for justice and the author of a book titled The Boy with a Pound in his Pocket (2022). The book shares her younger brother Yousef’s story and her family's struggle for truth and justice. Jade lives in Manchester with her husband Mazen and four children.

David Conn is an investigations correspondent for The Guardian, and author of four books. He has reported on the Hillsborough disaster and the bereaved families' campaign for justice for almost 30 years. He has also written in-depth about the legal system and many justice issues. David received the Paul Foot award for investigative and campaigning journalism in 2023, and the 2024 news reporter of the year in the Press Awards.

Eithne Quinn is Professor of Cultural & Socio-Legal Studies at The University of Manchester. Her work focuses on race and inequalities in the legal sector and cultural industries. Eithne is the author of two books and a co-author of two reports Racial Bias and the Bench: A response to the Judicial Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (2020-25) and Compound Injustice: A review of cases involving rap music evidence in England and Wales. She is hosting David Conn’s Simon Fellowship at the University of Manchester.

Dr Patrick Williams is a researcher and scholar, based at the Harm to Healing Coalition, who works in-service to community groups, movements and organisations who are resisting the harms of the Criminal Legal Systems of England and Wales and Europe. He is co-author of many reports, including Dangerous Associations: Joint Enterprise, Gangs and Racism, and papers documenting the pains of criminal injustice, paying particular attention to collective forms of punishments. His work focuses in-depth on modalities of injustice and processes of criminalisation.

Pete Weatherby KC is a founding member of Garden Court North Chambers. Pete was the Makki-Akoum family’s lawyer at the second inquest which achieved the unlawful killing ruling. He is a human rights barrister who has appeared at all levels of the domestic legal system and in a number of international courts and tribunals including Strasbourg. He represented bereaved families at public inquiries and inquests, including Hillsborough, Grenfell, Manchester Arena, Covid and the Undercover Policing Inquiries. Pete is one of the main drafters of the Public Authority (Accountability) Bill 2017 (Hillsborough Law).

We want to make the event a positive experience for all participants. If you have particular access needs, please let us know in advance by providing details of any accessibility needs when registering for your ticket or by emailing us at [email protected].

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