A drug dealer was jailed for life today (Friday 13 November) for murdering Abdul Deghayes in a Brighton street.
Daniel Macleod, 37, was also jailed for drug dealing in Brighton along with two other men, Stephen Burns, 56, and Abdi Dahir, 25.
Judge Nicholas Hilliard sentenced Macleod to a minimum term of 19 years, with a sentence of seven years and one month to be served at the same time for drug dealing.
At Southwark Crown court he told Macleod that he killed Deghayes in a “ferocious attack with a knife with a 6 or 7in blade” and that “considerable force was used”.
Burns, of Lennox Street, Brighton, was cleared by the jury of helping Macleod after the murder but he was jailed for 34 months for supplying drugs.
The judge jailed Dahir, of Meadowview, Brighton, for 50 months for his role alongside Macleod and Burns in a drug dealing network known as “Frank”.
Macleod stabbed Deghayes several times outside Hanover Court, in Wellington Road, Brighton, off the bottom of Elm Grove, opposite St Joseph’s Church, on Saturday 16 February last year.
Abdulrahman “Abdul” Deghayes died early the next morning at the Royal Sussex County Hospital, Brighton, despite the best efforts of medics to save him. He was 22 years old.
Deghayes, known as A1 to his friends, had been stabbed eight times and at least two of his injuries caused severe bleeding.
As Abubaker Deghayes, the victim’s father spoke about the impact of the murder in court today, Macleod said: “I am sorry.”
Mr Deghayes’s voice cracked at times as he spoke about his son whose life, he said, had been destroyed by drugs.
Deghayes, of Chadborn Close, Brighton, went with his friend Colby Broderick to buy cocaine and got into a fight with Macleod.
Macleod, who lived in Crawley at the time of the attack, denied murder but admitted killing Deghayes, saying that he stabbed him in self-defence.
Last month a jury at Southwark Crown Court unanimously convicted Macleod of murder at the end of a five-week trial.
