The VRU, which was set up in 2019 by the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, commissioned researchers from the Behavioural Insights Team to analyse 50 homicides in the capital.
The researchers found that one in five of the homicides were “gang-related” but they admitted they only included cases “where the homicide appeared to be gang-motivated, rather than simply if there were gang affiliations.”
In four out of the 10 homicides the victim had a gang affiliation, suggesting the others were either attacked as a result of mistaken identity or chosen at random simply believed they lived in the territory of a rival gang.
The researchers said, “Gang-related tensions played a central role in the escalation to the homicide, via threats shared or an escalation of physical violence, which could lead to multiple ’retaliating' homicides.”
The report found: “Social media was used to set up a transaction between the victim and the suspect, which would eventually become the setting within which the homicide was committed. The transaction was used as a lure by the suspect, with the unspoken objective of robbing the victim. This included cases where the transaction was a drug deal.”
Offenders Believe Their Messages Can Be ‘Erased’
The report added: “In these cases, there is also evidence that the individuals involved believed social media to be a safer means of discussing the incident, because of their belief that messages could be erased or wouldn’t be accessible by others.”The researchers said many gang murders involved “premeditation and planning” and also pointed out that, “every gang case in our sample had multiple suspects, with as many as seven identified suspects for one case.”
In such cases, where multiple offenders are involved, the Crown Prosecution Service uses the legal term “joint enterprise” to charge all those involved with murder.
The VRU researchers also found the police and the Crown Prosecution Service often downplayed gang involvement or omitted it from documents.
They said: “Gang involvement presented a particularly complex collection of risks in the cases we analysed, and highlighted some of the clearest gaps in our understanding. We also found that, perhaps due to the number of individuals involved in these types of homicides, there tended to be less information available on the suspects’ backgrounds in gang-related cases.”
The researchers will now analyse another 300 homicides using the same model, with a view to it being used routinely.
In 2018 Fatima Khan, 21, who was described by her own barrister as “Ilford’s Snapchat queen,” was jailed for 14 years for manslaughter after she plotted with a love rival to kill Khalid Safi, 18, and then posted an image of his bloodied body on the app, alongside an offensive message.
A Snapchat spokesman told The Telegraph: “Unlike traditional social media platforms we don’t have open, unmoderated news feeds, which helps prevent harmful content going viral. If we identify violent content being shared on Snapchat, we will delete it immediately and the account may be removed.”
