Judge gives Brighton teen ‘one last chance’

A judge gave a Brighton teenager a reprieve this afternoon but told him: “You’re walking a tightrope.”

Zakaria Deghayes, 19, of Chichester Drive West, Saltdean, admitted obstructing a police officer and driving with no insurance while serving a suspended prison sentence.

Judge Jeremy Gold had sentenced Deghayes to six months in prison, suspended for 18 months, at Hove Crown Court last May for having 160 grams of cannabis with intent to supply in Queen’s Road, Brighton. His stash was said to be worth between £1,600 and £3,200.

Today (Thursday 28 January) the same judge told Deghayes that he would not activate the suspended sentence on this occasion.

But Judge Gold said: “You’re walking a tightrope. If you commit further offences, it would be very difficult for me to be as lenient.”

He urged the youngster to “leave your flirtation with drugs behind you”, adding: “Don’t associate with people who are using drugs. This is one last chance for you. I hope you take advantage of it.”

The judge imposed a curfew from 9pm to 6am for three months and ordered Deghayes to wear an electronic tag to enforce the curfew.

He handed down a 12-month community order and fined Deghayes £50 for driving without insurance. He also ordered him to pay a victim surcharge of £95.

The judge also gave him six penalty points on his licence. Deghayes already had six points and was told that the total of 12 points meant that he would be banned from driving for a year as a result.

Richard Cherrill, prosecuting, told the court that Deghayes was arrested after police saw him driving erratically in the early hours of the morning in Eastern Road, Brighton, last month.

When they stopped him, in a silver Vauxhall Corsa, in Edward Street, Mr Cherrill said that an officer thought that Deghayes’s pupils were dilated and “there was an overpowering smell of cannabis”.

When an officer went to arrest him, he threw something to one of his cousins, who was in the car, and ran off but was caught soon afterwards.

Hollie Collinge, in mitigation, told the court: “It was a very silly thing to do and a spur of the moment decision.”

She said: “He was detained very quickly. There wasn’t anything on his person.”

And she added that Deghayes had not breached his previous curfew and had been carrying out the rehabilitation activities required as part of his sentence in May last year.

She said that he was studying business at the Greater Brighton Metropolitan College (GB Met) and hoped to go to university.

Two years ago Deghayes’s cousin, Abdul Deghayes, 20, died after being stabbed when he went to buy drugs in Brighton. The man who murdered him, Daniel Macleod, was jailed for life last November.