Pa Salieu, the British rapper and Brit Awards nominee, has been sentenced to 33 months in prison. As the BBC reports, 25-year-old Salieu — born Pa Salieu Gaye — was convicted of violent disorder for his role in 2018 “mob” violence in Coventry following the fatal stabbing of his best friend Fidel Glasgow, the grandson of Specials singer Neville Staple. Closed circuit TV captured footage of Salieu using a tree branch to beat a 23-year-old man who then spent 10 days in the hospital. He was convicted of using a smashed bottle as an offensive weapon.

During sentencing, Judge Peter Cooke told Salieu, “Anyone harboring 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.” The judge added, “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.”