A senior police officer has raised concerns that a “narrative” was built up suggesting the death of a black boy allegedly pushed into a Welsh river by a schoolmate was a racist killing.
Det Ch Insp Matt Powell, who led the police investigation into 13-year-old Christopher Kapessa’s death, said comparisons to Stephen Lawrence’s murder on social media led to tensions rising in the community and meant the suspect had to be given protection.
Speaking at Christopher’s inquest in Pontypridd, south Wales, Powell confirmed that initially police had treated the teenager’s death as an accident and it was not until a week or two later that rumours he had been pushed prompted officers began to re-interview witnesses.
Christopher’s family and supporters believe south Wales police leaped prematurely to the conclusion his death had been an accident and have accused the force of institutional racism.
They are angry that, although the Crown Prosecution later decided there was evidence to support a charge of manslaughter against the boy who allegedly pushed Christopher, they decided that it was not in the public interest to do so. They have also said it has not been established why Christopher, the only black child in a large group at the river, was allegedly “selected” by the suspect.
Powell said initial accounts suggested Christopher had fallen into the River Cynon in July 2019. Over the next week or two, accounts he had been pushed emerged, the officer said.
Tom Leeper, the counsel to the inquest, asked if there was any evidence that bullying led to him ending up in the water, to which Powell responded: “I found no evidence of that, no evidence of racism playing a role within him entering the water.”
Powell said for “many months” afterwards there were “inaccurate” reports that race had played a role with a social media campaign calling for justice for Christopher linking the death to the Black Lives Matter movement and drawing parallels with the “terrible murder of Stephen Lawrence” and “105 incidents of police institutional racism across the UK”.
He said: “I think many witnesses and their families felt pressures from the inaccurate reporting but the particular consequences would have been to [the suspect] and his family. For short periods they would move from the area and there were police safeguarding measures put in place to help protect them and their home address.”
The suspect has told the hearing that he fell into Christopher accidentally, causing him to fall. His barrister, David Hughes, asked Powell: “It would be fair to say that a narrative has built up on social media portraying Christopher’s death as a racist murder?” Powell replied: “I would say that’s accurate, yes.”
Christopher’s mother, Alina Joseph, has told the inquest that the family suffered terrible racism after arriving in Wales in 2011 but said he had a group of good friends in Mountain Ash, where they were living at the time of the tragedy.
At a judicial review of the case in London in 2022, Michael Mansfield KC, for the family, said: “It has not been clarified or established why Christopher, who was black, was selected by the suspect.”
The inquest continues.
