The youngest member of a troubled Brighton family has been jailed for drug dealing by a judge at Lewes Crown Court.
Judge Charles Kemp sentenced Mohammed Deghayes, 19, of Chadborn Close, Brighton, to a total of four years in a young offender institution today (Thursday 26 April).
The teenager – a former ward of the court – lost his older brothers Abudullah and Jaffar in fighting in Syria in 2014. Abdullah was 18 when he died and Jaffar was 17.
Their deaths were the subject of an official review. It which was commissioned by the Brighton and Hove Local Safeguarding Children Board and published in July last year.
And a year ago, in April last year, Mohammed Deghayes was sentenced to 44 weeks in a young offender institution, suspended for two years.
The sentence was imposed at Brighton Crown Court for having 24 packs of MDMA, also known as ecstasy, with intent to supply. He was caught in Old Steine, Brighton, in September 2016.
Today, Deghayes was jailed for a series of offences including breaching the suspended sentence.
The court was told that, in November 2016, police found Deghayes in a house in Tavistock Drive, Hollingdean, with five other men and a large amount of drugs.
Police found 118 grams of loose MDMA with a street value of almost £4,000 as well as about 8 grams of cocaine.
Deghayes pleaded guilty to two counts of having class A drugs with intent to supply.
His latest arrest was in November last year in Coldean Lane, Brighton, after police smelt cannabis in the car that he was in.
Deghayes was in the back of the car and had a small amount of cannabis and cocaine as well as 19 wraps of heroin and crack cocaine concealed in his anus.
The court was told that the drugs had a street value of about £100 in total and, two months ago, he pleaded guilty to two counts of having class A drugs with intent to supply and one charge of having class B drugs.
His four-sentence includes six months of his suspended sentence added to three and a half years for the November 2016 offences. He was also jailed for three years for the November 2017 offences, to be served concurrently.
Hollie Collinge, defending, said that Deghayes had turned to drugs as a much-needed escape and had stayed clean during six months in custody after his arrest in November last year.
While sympathetic about his family history, Judge Kemp told Deghayes that it gave him no pleasure to jail him.
He said: “It’s got to teach you – and others like you who might be tempted to get involved in this business – that it doesn’t work at the end of the day.”
“You took to using drugs, built up debts and were then offered a way out – a way of repaying those debts. That is a desperately sad story in one so young.
“But once those drugs have left your hands, you’ve got no control over whose hands they end up in – and too often they end up in the hands of young and vulnerable people.”
Judge Kemp added: “Come out clean and keep clean and lead a decent life!”
