Start with the money. Police told a UK court, according to the parents of Oluwatobiloba Akinrinola, that victims of a party robbery sent cash to accounts belonging to two suspects, Richile Vagnu and Ayomide Ibraheem. Akinrinola was not one of them. His parents say his bank records show no such transfers.
The catch is that a court convicted him anyway. On June 19, 2026, a UK court found the Nigerian student guilty of robbery and blackmail. He is in Nottingham Prison until sentencing on July 27.
His parents, Mr Aderinkola Akinrinola and Mrs Olayinka Akinrinola, laid out their objections in a statement released in Ibadan, Oyo State, on Thursday. They want the verdict reviewed. Their account has not been tested beyond what they say the court heard.
What was and was not found
The jackets and footwear taken from the victims were not found in their son’s possession, the parents say, after police searched his apartment. They also say CCTV played at trial showed him entering the party on November 21, 2025, and never put him at the robbery itself.
That leaves, in their reading, the photograph. The statement says the only other evidence against him was a picture he took with Vagnu, the prime suspect. “The police argument against him is that he is guilty by association,” the parents write.
They say he met Vagnu in October, after he started as a first-year at Leicester University in September 2025. “At best, acquaintances,” the statement says.
The room
Akinrinola does not deny going to the party. According to the statement, he walked into the room where the robbery was happening, asked what was going on and left, making clear he wanted no part of it. The parents say some victims confirmed in court that he was not among the robbers, and that one said he was trying to help.
Ibraheem is a different matter in the parents’ telling. They say victims identified him as the person keeping them from leaving the room, yet he was allowed to go free. Police also did not bring some of the other suspects to court, the parents say, because those suspects had not honoured police invitations.
A call he made himself
A few days after the robbery, a TikTok influencer posted a video that linked Akinrinola to the attack, the parents say. He phoned the police and offered to be questioned. They told him it was unnecessary, since he was not a suspect.
The couple say he has no earlier record of criminal activity. They have asked the UK government, legal institutions and human rights organisations to look again at the case before he is sentenced on July 27.
