Sex worker accused of murder 'lured' dealer to fatal stabbing at Sheffield park in 'turf' dispute, jury told

24-year-old Sacad Ali lost his life in a fatal knife attack carried out at Ponderosa Park in the Netherthorpe area of Sheffield in the early hours of March 9, 2024, despite the best efforts of medics, police and residents who attempted to come to his aid. 

Two teenage boys, Male A and Male B - neither of whom can be identified due to their age - have pleaded guilty to Mr Ali’s murder. 

A third defendant, Rebecca Moore, aged 25, denies murdering Mr Ali and has today (Tuesday, October 22, 2024) gone on trial at Sheffield Crown Court. 

Murder victim ‘lured out under promise of sexual favours,’ claims prosecutor

“It was Rebecca Moore that lured Mr Ali out of a flat under the promise of sexual favours, he was then attacked and stabbed,” said Simon Kealey KC, as he outlined the prosecution’s case against Ms Moore, formerly of Springvale Walk, Netherthorpe, Sheffield, to a jury of seven women and five men. 

He told the jury that the issue for them to decide upon at the conclusion of the trial, which is expected to last around a fortnight, is whether Ms Moore was ‘part of’ the fatal attack upon Mr Ali, and whether she ‘shared an intention to cause him either really serious harm or to kill him’.

Mr Kealey said that while Ms Moore admits to being a ‘drug addict and a sex worker,’ and to spending time in the company of Male A and Male B on the night of the killing, she denies murdering Mr Ali.  

Moving to the motive, Mr Kealey said the ‘short answer’ for why Mr Ali was attacked was ‘drugs’ and the fact that Ms Moore, Male A and Male B believed Mr Ali was dealing crack cocaine ‘on their patch’. 

All three defendants are alleged to have had involvement in a Sheffield drugs phone line, known as the ‘Frank’ line, through which users would request drugs that had been supplied to the defendants from those ‘higher in the chain’.  

“It’s clear from what Rebecca Moore was later to say that she knew - and in all likelihood so did Male A and Male B - that Sacad Ali was involved in dealing drugs,” Mr Kealey said.

He told the jury that they are to hear evidence from Kelly Baker-Finnegan whose home was allegedly visited by Ms Moore a short time after the fatal attack. 

Ms Baker-Finnegan claims Ms Moore - while intoxicated and asking to be let in from the cold - told her that she had just ‘had someone killed’. 

“Rebecca Moore went on to ask if it was fine that she didn’t feel anything, that there was something wrong with her. She said she had done it by setting them up…she said she’d done it because she could and to protect the Frank drug line,” Mr Kealey said.

He continued: “She said she was three-thirds of the way down a bottle of vodka, and she had got the two boys - Male A and Male B - obliterated or drunk. She described what she said was a sword fight. She said it had been a set-up to beat him up for selling crack. She said she had phoned him to come down for business.”

Murder accused arranged to meet Sacad Ali through phone calls, jury told

Mr Kealey said it is the prosecution’s case that Ms Moore, who appeared in the dock wearing a long-sleeved leopard print top and black jeans, arranged contact with Mr Ali on the night he was killed through two phone calls. 

The jury heard how Mr Ali received all of the calls while he was at the home of, and in the presence of, his friend, Mohammed Salmani, who lived near Ponderosa Park, and would later hear Mr Ali’s screams as he fought for his life. 

“The arrangement made by Rebecca Moore in those calls was to make Sacad Ali think they were going to meet for some form of sexual activity,” Mr Kealey said. 

He suggested that the purpose of the phone calls made by Ms Moore was to ‘lure Mr Ali out, unsuspecting, and then to attack him’. 

“If there was an intention to meet Sacad Ali simply for sex, it begs the question: why was she then accompanied by Male A and Male B?” 

Mr Salmani told police that during the first of the phone calls, Mr Ali asked how the person calling had got his number.

“It suggests Mr Ali didn’t know Rebecca Moore prior to that phone call,” Mr Kealey said, adding that Mr Ali put the subsequent call on loudspeaker, enabling Mr Salmani to hear what was being said.

The jury heard that once the phone call between Mr Ali and Ms Moore had finished, Mr Ali asked his friend for a condom.

Alleged circumstances of fatal attack outlined to jury

Describing the alleged circumstances surrounding the attack, which has been captured on various CCTV footage taken in and around the Netherthorpe park, Mr Kealey said it shows Ms Moore on a path near to the location where she arranged to meet Mr Ali, and she is then ‘joined’ by him. 

“At that point she looks over her shoulder, and they stand close to each other for a few seconds before they walk out of sight,” Mr Kealey told the jury. 

He continued: “A few seconds after that Male A and Male B appear. They walk along the grassed area near to where Rebecca Moore had walked in the same direction as Sacad Ali.”

“At 4.26am the attack is caught on CCTV footage as Sacad Ali and Rebecca Moore walk together and go on to the path. Male A and Male B come on quickly from behind. They attack Sacad Ali, they repeatedly stab him, they hit out at Sacad Ali.”

Mr Ali, who suffered defensive wounds to his arms, is seen to back away from the two males, but they pursue him and the attack continues, the court heard.  

“Rebecca Moore stands where she was last stood for some time, as though she was watching events,” Mr Kealey told the jury. 

In video-recorded evidence played to the jury today, Mr Solmani described how his attention was drawn to the attack after hearing Mr Ali’s screams, and he witnessed two males carrying out the attack, one with a ‘big knife’ and one with ‘big arms’. 

He said he could see Mr Ali holding both arms up, begging the two males ‘please leave me alone’. 

“He said it a hundred times…they didn’t listen, they didn’t care,” Mr Solmani said. 

Another eye-witness who also lived close to the park was awoken to her dogs barking, and soon realised she could hear someone screaming, the jury were told.

The witness said she heard the man being attacked say: “Alright lads, now I’m hurt. Leave it.” 

Following the attack, members of the public called the emergency services and attempted to help Mr Ali, with one resident wrapping a snood around his leg in a bid to try and stem the bleeding. 

Ambulance crews, which included a doctor within their number, arrived at the scene and attempted to resuscitate Mr Ali for around half an hour. Mr Ali could not be saved and was pronounced dead at the scene at 5.09am, the court heard.  

Post-mortem examination and defendants’ alleged movements after Mr Ali’s death

A post-mortem examination revealed Mr Ali sustained a number of stab wounds, and the fatal injury had been the stab wound to his thigh after his main artery and vein had been severed, the court heard. 

Mr Kealey said ambulance driver, Shelby Harrison, was parked nearby after being called out to an unrelated incident, and told police that she witnessed two males, both of whom were wearing balaclavas or some form of face coverings, emerge near to the park at around 4.30am.   

Mr Kealey said Ms Harrison recalled that the males, who she described as looking ‘young’ were ‘scanning’ the area so intently that they both walked into the side of the ambulance, before looking ‘directly’ into it as they moved away.

“It must be the two males you are concerned with,” Mr Kealey told jurors, before adding: “About 10 seconds later a female appeared from the left of where Ms Harrison was and she was running up the road as if pursuing the males, trying to catch up with them. And that, of course, can only realistically be Rebecca Moore.”

Arrest of Rebecca Moore and the prepared statements provided to police

Ms Moore was arrested on March 12, 2024, three days after Mr Ali’s death, after initially giving police the false name of ‘Lauren Smith,’ the court heard. 

Upon her arrest Ms Moore is reported to have said: “Why am I under arrest, I’m a drug user, I’m not a murderer. I told you my working girl name because I’m a working girl.”

Mr Kealey told jurors how, in the police interviews that followed, Ms Moore provided police with two prepared statements through her solicitor. 

In the first she denied the murder allegation, and said she had not ‘harmed’ Mr Ali, or had any ‘prior knowledge that harm would be caused to him’. 

Through the second prepared statement, Ms Moore said she had arranged sex work in exchange for money and drugs with a man who referred to himself as ‘Ghost’. 

She claimed to have gone to Ponderosa Park with Ghost, and Male A and Male B, who she admitted to knowing, had ‘followed her to commit this offence’. 

Ms Moore denies a single charge of murder.

The trial continues.