Pa Salieu sentenced to 33 months in prison

British rapper Pa Salieu has been sentenced to 33 months in prison, The Guardian reports. He was convicted of violent disorder and possessing a bottle as an offensive weapon, in relation to a 2018 incident where his friend Fidel Glasgow, grandson of Neville Staple of the Specials, was stabbed to death. A fight allegedly broke out after the stabbing, and Salieu and eight other men were accused of chasing a 23-year-old man from the scene, referred to pseudonymously as “Boddy.” Salieu was captured on CCTV hitting “Bobby” with a tree branch.

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“Bobby” spent 10 days in hospital as a result, undergoing what the prosecution described as “immediate, extensive surgery”, and has since recovered. Salieu told the court that he had smashed the bottle to defend himself, claiming that he thought the man was armed. Judge Peter Cooke rejected Salieu’s claim.

The rapper’s lawyer, Jonathan Woodcock, asked for a suspended sentence and said there was a “realistic prospect of rehabilitation”.

Sky News reports that Judge Cooke told Salieu, “Anyone harbouring the view that you are a young man being hard done by should pause to reflect that despite having a conviction for carrying a knife three years earlier – which resulted in a suspended sentence – in the course of these events you used two bottles and a stick. It was your intention to turn a bottle into a jagged weapon.”