Rapper Pa Salieu jailed for vicious attack with tree branch that put victim in hospital for 10 days
2 December 2022, 15:25 | Updated: 2 December 2022, 15:42
Rapper Pa Salieu has been jailed for two years and nine months for battering a man with a tree branch, leaving the victim in need of hospital treatment.
The rapper was jailed for his part in the vicious attack that erupted after his friend was stabbed to death in Coventry in 2018.
The award-winning singer was jailed at Warwick Crown Court, despite a judge accepting the 25-year-old had "done a good deal more than just behave himself" since getting involved in the violence four years ago.
Salieu admitted violent disorder at a previous hearing, having been caught on CCTV using a tree branch to repeatedly hit a 23-year-old man who spent ten days in hospital.
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The Coventry-based artist, who was named the BBC's Sound of 2021, was cleared by a jury of a second count of violent disorder relating to a mass brawl in a nearby street minutes earlier, which led to the death of 21-year-old Fidel Glasgow.
But the BRIT Awards nominee was convicted of possessing a bottle as an offensive weapon after telling jurors he smashed and brandished it to defend himself.
Following his arrest, the court heard, Salieu, from Hillfields, Coventry, told police Mr Glasgow was his best friend and then exercised his right to silence.
No one has ever been charged with the murder of Mr Glasgow - the grandson of The Specials singer Neville Staple - despite extensive inquiries into disorder following a music event at Coventry's Club M in the early hours of September 1, 2018.
Passing sentence on Salieu, who appeared in court using his full name Pa Salieu Gaye, Judge Peter Cooke told him: "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."
Salieu and others involved in the violence had acted like a "mob," the judge said, adding: "The case illustrates the dangers for any young man of acting with a pack mentality and getting involved in mass disorder.
"If you do that somebody is likely to end up seriously injured or dead.
"What happened to Fidel could have happened to anyone in that melee."
