The parents of a teenager stabbed to death have told a court of their efforts to save him from his drug dealing and debts.
Mustafa Momand racked up a shared £20,000 drug debt and was knifed in broad daylight in central Brighton on October 5 2023.
Before his death, his mother Suraya Momand said he told her he “regretted everything” and talked about going to college to study law to help exploited children.
A 16-year-old boy from Southwick is on trial at Brighton Crown Court for his murder.
During the trial, Mustafa’s parents revealed how they “begged” police to send their 17-year-old son to prison to get him away from drug dealing.
Jurors had heard when Mustafa turned 16, things “got worse” and his behaviour changed, his parents found weapons in his pockets and he went missing for days on occasion, coming back with valuable items or injuries.
Jurors heard how Mustafa had moved to the UK from Afghanistan with his family in 2009 when he was three years old, and in late 2021 his mother found cannabis in his room and suspected he was using or dealing drugs.
In a statement read aloud to court on Tuesday, Mustafa’s father, Noor Momand, said he first became worried when his son came home very late on his 16th birthday despite his family waiting with a birthday cake for him.
When he did come home he had with him a “very expensive” bottle of Chanel perfume, which he said a friend gave him.
“I was worried he was being exploited in some way,” Mr Momand said.
“We begged police to put him in juvenile prison.
“I was also thinking he was beginning to look like a drug user, he had dirty clothes and dirty nails.”
Mrs Momand said in a statement read aloud to court that he argued with her, his father and siblings and that he was going more against them and separate from the family.
On one occasion she said Mustafa went missing for three days because he was angry with her for speaking to the police about him.
She said: “I was just a very worried mother. I was scared for his safety, I felt like I was losing my son.”
She described how Mustafa told her he wanted to stop dealing in future, and said a man who gives him the drugs “favours” him.
Bur he added that he was in debt to the man because of losing drugs and money when he gets arrested by police.
“Mustafa took me aside one day and asked if we could stop fighting and he could have his mum back,” she said.
The court heard how Mustafa was housed by social services in Bevendean, in Brighton in early 2023, because his mother felt she could not look after him at home any more.
He was later moved out of the area to Croydon, south London, where he registered to attend college for a two-year A-Level Business and Law course for September 2023.
Mrs Momand said he told her he had started attending mosque, playing football and had made nice friends since his move.
Mr Momand added while Mustafa was in care: “He was showing he was sorry and being kind and nice to me and my family.
“He didn’t go out a lot, he said he wanted to get away from these people.”
The trial continues.
So all of this stuff about him being a good boy was rubbish then, sounds like fancied himself a little gangster and caused a lot of misery to a lot of people. You reap what you sow as they say.
Potentially. He paid for this with his life very early on. Make no mistake, we all failed this young person.
Who’s “we”? You and other drug users? I’m not one of you. I don’t feed into this miserable racket.
Sort yourself out.
Ewww Wow . Go away then .
A child being given drugs by adults.
I guarantee that you have dome vice.
Hope that you never have a loved one with addiction issues .
That includes sex ,gambling and gambling on sex
This is child exploitation. Vulnerable kids (e.g. due to poverty) getting groomed into situations they don’t understand, because they don’t have the experience or privilege of people like Blatchberg. He sounds like a terrified kid, who was trapped in a situation he had no way to get out of. His parents doing all they could to protect him but powerless. Blame those exploiting vulnerable kids not vulnerable kids. It’s devastating.
“He was a good boy never did nuffin”
Grow up you melt.
You have no idea. It is very easy, very naive and very wrong to label all these kids as wronguns. The groomers are well versed in coercing vulnerable, impressionable young boys. They prey on the troubled, the kids with no friends. They show them wealth, kindness, make them feel part of something. They get them hooked on drugs and selling drugs, the kids make money and gain some misguided self respect for the first time in their lives. Then they get given a large amount to sell and then often get robbed by the same people. The friendliness evaporates, replaced by violence and intimidation and they are forever indebted and in the servitude of these people.
It happened to my partner’s son. Luckily for him, she fought very, very hard (police and social services were useless) and eventually got him put under a supervision order before he got robbed, else he could well have been this poor kid. Now out of the environment and getting the help and therapy he so obviously needed, the turnaround in his behaviour has been staggering.
Blatchberg, do us all a turn and get a vasectomy, there’s a good lad.
To anyone stumbling upon the comments here, I hope this tragedy highlights to you all that our local young people are being groomed into selling drugs. A similar type of grooming that child victims of sexual abuse suffer. The groomers are just as disgusting, making young people do their dirty work by convincing them to sell drugs. Grooming is based on power. In these days of a cost of living crisis, it is easy to see why young, impressionable people may be lured to do a small thing in exchange for gifts, friendship and a sense of feeling protected. It’s not right, of course, but anyone can be duped into trusting someone who later turns out not to have their best interests at heart.
I hope the adult cowards who groom the young people in Brighton to do their dirty work face justice for their part in this murder. And the ‘adults’ driving the demand for drugs? They have blood on their hands, too.
We wouldn’t blame a child for being groomed and sexually abused. We need to see children being groomed into drug dealing as victims, too.
Well said DS.
Completely agree. He was a victim, he was clearly terrified, and his parents did their best to protect him. Absolutely tragic.
As if he was sent to Croydon to avoid dealers?! RIP too young to die poor boy.
Ds – your comments are spot on.
The parents evidence is heartbreaking, and yes anyone who buys drugs in Brighton has (some of) his blood on their hands too, along of course with his killer/s and all the other drug dealers in this sorry city
My daughter was groomed by a local drug gang. It was while a scholarship pupil at Roedean Private School that she was introduced to drugs by fellow pupils. She was made a scapegoat and eventually expelled. This led to a downward spiral and eventually her death in 2021 at a YMCA hostel in Hove where she was found hanged after being sexually assaulted/raped by a volunteer worker there.
Being groomed by older dealers?
The accused is even younger than him, these people are worthless members of society and deserve no sympathy.