A black rights charity that claimed the gangster Chris Kaba was a victim of “racist state violence” is being examined by regulators.
The Runnymede Trust, which openly criticised the legal system after a police officer was acquitted of murder for shooting Kaba, is facing questions from the Charity Commission following a complaint by Robert Jenrick, a Tory leadership contender.
It has now deleted the controversial social media posts and admitted they were a mistake.
A jury took three hours to acquit Sgt Martyn Blake of murdering Kaba after the 24-year-old was shot dead during a police stop.
The Runnymede Trust wrote on X after the jury cleared Sgt Blake of murder: “The legal system doesn’t deliver real justice for families bereaved by racist state violence.
“Since 1990, there have been 1,904 deaths in or following police custody or contact. In that time, only one officer has been found guilty for manslaughter, and none for murder.”
It added “our thoughts and solidarity are with Chris’s loved ones and wider community” and concluded the thread with “#JusticeForChrisKaba”.
It later emerged that 211 of those deaths were of people from black, Asian and other ethnic minority communities, rather than all of them.
Following Mr Jenrick’s complaint, the charity said that the post was “not as carefully expressed” as it should have been and that the trial “followed the traditional conventions of legal accountability”.
But it added that it would still work to “highlight the institutional nature of institutional racism within police forces”.
Mr Jenrick demanded that the Charity Commission investigate the trust, which he said had “clearly breached its status as a non-political organisation”.
In a letter to the commission’s chief executive, Mr Jenrick said that the regulator should consider revoking the organisation’s charitable status, as it “contributes to social division through baseless accusations against the legal system”.
The watchdog confirmed that it was “assessing concerns” about “recent social media posts” by the charity.
The Runnymede Trust said: “We have deleted our posts in relation to the acquittal of Sgt Martyn Blake for the murder of Chris Kaba.
“We accept that the wording and statistics used in our original posts on X were not as carefully expressed as they should have been, and regret the furore that this caused.”
It added: “The statistics used should have been qualified by referencing the source, which itself states that people of colour ‘die disproportionately as a result of use of force or restraint by the police’ and that 8 per cent of those who died in custody were racialised as black, despite representing only 3 per cent of the population’.”
The statement continued: “Our posts were making a more nuanced and complex point which could not be clearly expressed with the limitations of the X format, and so we should have refrained from making it.
“We accept that there was a prosecution and a trial where a jury reached a verdict and that these followed the traditional conventions of legal accountability.”
However, the charity said that “independent accounts clearly highlight the deep-seated nature of institutional racism within police forces” and that the legal system “is not free from racial bias”.
Mr Jenrick claimed that with its post the Runnymede Trust had “acted in a manner which is likely to cause social division” which he said was “completely unacceptable for an institution which receives charitable tax exemptions”.
This is not the first time that the organisation has been referred to the watchdog, with the Charity Commission conducting a review into the Runnymede Trust in 2021.
Tory MPs had demanded an inquiry into the organisation after it criticised the findings of a government report by the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities.
The watchdog concluded that the Runnymede Trust had not breached charity guidance by its intervention but warned that the charity would have to ensure its engagement with political parties and politicians was balanced.
Mr Jenrick said: “Their action over the Chris Kaba incident – accusing the legal system of racist violence while the police officer in question has a bounty against his head set by a violent gang – shows that they have not changed.”
