Thank you to everyone who helped fund our landmark legal challenge against the Gangs Matrix.

Our case was due to be heard at the Royal Courts of Justice this week, but I am delighted to tell you that the Metropolitan Police Service has conceded defeat. 

As a result of our case, the Gangs Matrix will now be completely overhauled and the majority of people will have their data removed.

This is a really important victory for racial justice and we couldn’t have done it without the support of our backers, so thank you. 

Having defended its claim for over a year, the Met has now conceded that the Gangs Matrix breaches people’s human rights and is unlawful. It has also accepted that Black people are disproportionately represented on the Matrix and that efforts to address this just have not worked. 

A particularly sinister feature of the Matrix was the secrecy around it. As a rule, the police would not tell you if you were on there and there was no right to appeal against your inclusion – they would simply ‘neither confirm nor deny’.

Because of our legal action, anyone can now ask the Met if they are or were on the Gangs Matrix and find out what data was held on them, unless there is a data protection exemption.

Liberty encourages anyone who has been subjected to ‘over-policing’ – such as repeated stop and search – or for any other reasons thinks they might have been put on the Matrix, to submit a Subject Access Request to the Met to find out.

Huge congratulations and thanks to our amazing clients Awate Suleiman and UNJUST UK, as well as our barristers Adam Straw and Tayyiba Bajwa at Doughty Street Chambers.

This victory is also shared with the many campaigners and organisations who helped bring the injustices of the Gangs Matrix to light and campaigned tirelessly for many years for it to be scrapped, including Tottenham Rights and Amnesty International. Our legal challenge would not have been possible without their ground-breaking work.

Thank you again to everyone who backed our case. Your donations protected our clients Awate and UNJUST from financial risk in taking legal action and allowed the case to go ahead. Without your support we would not be where we are today.

This is a really important step forward but there is still much to be done to challenge systemic discrimination in UK policing and the wider criminal justice system. The unused funds will now be donated to UNJUST to support their ongoing work in this area.

The High Court has now granted our clients permission to challenge the Met’s racist Gangs Violence Matrix. This is incredibly exciting news and means that this vital case will be heard in court. We couldn’t have done this without your support – thank you for donating and sharing our campaign.

We now urgently need to raise additional funds to make sure that our clients – Awate Suleiman and UNJUST – are protected from liability for the Met’s legal costs so they can take their case all the way to the final hearing.  

Please donate what you can and share our CrowdJustice page on social media and with friends and family.

Unfair and racist

The Gangs Violence Matrix is a deeply unfair and racist policing tool. This secretive police watchlist of suspected ‘gang members’ includes the details of children as young as 13 and disproportionately affects people from Black and minority ethnic backgrounds.

You can be added because of who your friends and family are, where you live, or the music you make and share on social media. Even being the victim of a ‘gang-related’ crime could land you on it.

There is no way of finding out what data is held on you and no right to appeal.

Drastic changes needed

We will argue in Court that the Gangs Violence Matrix violates people’s human rights, breaches equality and data protection laws, and public law principles. We hope that this case will lead to drastic changes to the Matrix, including greater transparency, tighter regulation, and the introduction of a right of appeal against being added to the Matrix.

Please donate what you can to help us take this crucial case forward. 

We will keep you updated as the case progresses.

Thank you so much to all of you who’ve donated and shared. We managed to reach our initial target of £6,500 within the first week which is brilliant news! We’re now aiming for a stretch target of £10,000 and anything you can give will be a huge boost to our case.

Many of you have left moving comments about personal experiences of Police discrimination, and about taking a stand against racism and injustice by supporting our legal challenge. We can’t thank you enough for your generosity and your kind words of support.

Please continue to share our case and give what you can. Let’s make the Met see sense – the Gangs Matrix must go.

A HUGE thank you to all of you who’ve donated to our case so far. Thanks to your incredible generosity we are now over halfway towards reaching our target!

We’ve had some brilliant press coverage of the case this week which will really help raise awareness of the Gangs Matrix and the damage it does to our society. It's not a solution to serious youth violence – it's part of the problem.

It’s been really heartening to read your comments in support of our case. Please continue to donate and share with friends and family to make sure our clients can take the Met to court.