How killer trio's plot to lure rival dealer to Sheffield park attack led to "every parent's worst nightmare"
One young life was ended, and three more were ruined, after a plan to lure a rival drug dealer to a Sheffield park with the promise of sexual favours was put into motion.
Two members of the trio, teenagers Barney Griffin and Jack Douglas, sold drugs for the Frank line operating in the Upperthorpe area of the city, while the third, Rebecca Moore, was one of its regular customers.
Working together, Moore phoned their intended victim - rival dealer Sacad Ali - offering sex and telling him to meet her at Ponderosa Park in the early hours of March 9, 2024, while Griffin and Douglas lay in wait armed with knives.
After Moore met Mr Ali and led him to a dark corner of the park, Griffin and Douglas jumped out and stabbed him multiple times, refusing to stop even as he begged for his life and told them: “Alright lads, now I’m hurt, leave it.”
Despite the best efforts of residents and medics who rushed to the scene, Mr Ali could not be saved and passed away a short time after the attack - aged just 24-years-old.
His three killers have now served the first year of their lengthy custodial terms, after being sentenced during a Sheffield Crown Court hearing held in November 2024.
During it, Mr Ali’s mother, Hani, detailed the devastating impact of his death, describing the moment she was given the news as “every parent’s worst nightmare.”
“Our lives at that moment changed forever. Our family has been left completely broken-hearted, and nothing can replace him,” Ms Ali said.
Ms Ali described him as a “kind” and “loving” brother and son, and spoke of the continuing turmoil experienced by his siblings and other loved ones, as they struggle to come to terms with the prospect of a life without him.
Her family only learned of Mr Ali’s involvement with drug dealing in the aftermath of his death, the court heard.
Griffin and Douglas, aged 18 and 17 respectively at the time of their sentencing hearing, pleaded guilty to Mr Ali’s murder, while Moore, then aged 25, was found guilty of the same offence at the conclusion of a trial.
The Recorder of Sheffield, Judge Jeremy Richardson KC, jailed Moore, formerly of Springvale Walk, Upperthorpe, Sheffield, for life and fixed her minimum term at 15 years.
Due to their age, Judge Richardson told Griffin and Douglas that while they would, in effect receive a life sentence, it would be referred to as detention at His Majesty’s Pleasure.
Douglas received a minimum term of 15 years, while Griffin received one of 16 years.
Judge Richardson said he regarded the actions, culpability and immaturity of the two males to be “almost identical,” but the seven months’ difference in their age meant they were different chronological ages at the time of the murder, when Douglas was aged 16 and Griffin was 17-years-old.
The statutory starting point for the two males was judged to be six years apart, but Judge Richardson reduced the difference in their sentences to one of just a year, in the interests of “fairness,” and after taking mitigating factors and legal argument into consideration.
Sending them to begin their sentences, Judge Richardson told the three killers: “If ever there was a case that demonstrates the true evils of drug peddling and carrying knives, particularly young people carrying knives, this is it.
“This case demonstrates what can happen when young people get embroiled with drug peddling, and a drug related turf war erupts.”
Judge Richardson told the males: “Despite pleading for his life, you murdered him.
“You left him there to die; and he bled to death as a consequence of a particularly serious wound to his leg which severed a main artery and vein. There were 16 separate stab-wounds of different types. He was stabbed repeatedly.”
As the fatal attack ensued, Moore watched on from a distance of around 30 metres away, and in incriminating comments subsequently made to prison staff and a fellow inmate, Moore described watching the three males involved in a ‘sword fight’.
While in prison on remand, Moore said “her boys” had stabbed Mr Ali in the leg, because he should not have been “selling on her turf,” the court has previously been told.
“You were laughing and joking whilst you said this. To one of the officers you stated he had a slash to below the knee into a main artery and he had deserved to bleed to death,” Judge Richardson said.
Referring to the fact Moore was convicted of murder on a joint enterprise basis, Judge Richardson continued: “This case reveals that to be convicted of murder it is not necessary to be the person who executes the attack. Any person who participates in the killing, by way of setting it up or assisting the killer, or killers, providing he or she has the requisite intention, is also guilty of murder.”
At the time of the killing, Moore was plagued with addictions to both alcohol and drugs, including crack cocaine, and had fallen into sex work as a consequence, her trial was told.
Griffin and Douglas, formerly of Brightholmlee Lane, Wharncliffe Side, Sheffield, were friends throughout childhood, and both showed promise as footballers in their younger years.
“Both of you were talented football players as youths. It is a tragedy that you did not continue with the camaraderie and support of that sport,” Judge Richardson told them.
In both cases, Judge Richardson said he was satisfied that each of the males had been “exploited” and groomed into becoming involved with Sheffield’s criminal gangs, and their business of dealing illicit drugs.
He continued: “I am satisfied that the two teenage youths who perpetrated the killing were recruited or corrupted to enter the fetid swamp of drug dealing. They did not set up the drug line. However, once recruited and involved they wallowed in that swamp and had large knives to assist them in their criminal tasks.”