Teenage killer's sentence reduced

An 18-year-old man found guilty of killing a rival gang member who was stabbed at a city centre bus stop has had his sentence reduced.

Michel Hayles, of Birmingham, was given 10 years for the manslaughter of Odwayne Barnes, 16, last September.

The Court of Appeal reduced his term by two years, saying it was wrong he got the same term as an older, and therefore more responsible, accomplice.

Odwayne was attacked near Matthew Boulton College, in Birmingham.

'Good character'

The city's crown court heard he was attacked because he was in a rival gang.

Nathaniel Darby, then 20, of Birmingham, was also found guilty of manslaughter. Damien Belle, then 18, admitted murder at an earlier date.

Hayles' barrister, William Rickarby, said Hayles, of Amberley Grove, Aston, had been just 16 and of good character at the time of the killing, while Darby had been almost 21 and previously convicted of assaulting a police officer.

Allowing the appeal, Lord Justice Dyson agreed the sentencing judge should have made that distinction.

"There is a substantial difference in terms of responsibility criminally between a young man of 16 and a young man of almost 21," he told the court.

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