Murdered by ‘21st century highwaymen’
Damning verdict on drug-fuelled moped pair who knifed charity worker in the heart ... just for his iPhone
TWO teenage moped robbers dubbed ‘21st century highwaymen’ were convicted yesterday of stabbing a charity youth worker to death for his iPhone.
Abdul Samad, 28, was stabbed in the heart – hours after promising to marry his girlfriend – by the pair as they rode around London high on drugs and ‘bloodlust’, stabbing five people during a four-hour rampage.
Nathan Gilmaney, 19, grinned as he and his accomplice Troy Thomas, 18, were led to the cells at the Old Bailey.
Their victim’s mother, meanwhile, said the killing had ‘broken’ her family.
Mr Samad, who had dedicated his life to helping children, didn’t hesitate to hand over his iPhone, wallet and even his PIN when Gilmaney and Thomas accosted him.
But Gilmaney stabbed him in the heart anyway before roaring off with Thomas to ‘rob and maim their way around West London’.
Mr Samad, a Westminster University economics graduate, managed to stumble to his parents’ front door and press the buzzer to raise help before collapsing as his mother ran to his aid.
His parents, who came to Britain from Bangladesh in the 1960s in search of a better life for their children, attempted to save him but he died in hospital an hour after the attack in Paddington at 11.45pm on October 16 last year.
His mother Layla Begum wept yesterday as she said: ‘The death of my son has absolutely broken my husband, my eldest son, my
‘I’d do anything to get him back’
entire death there family has and not me. been Since a single his moment that goes by for me without shedding tears.
‘I would do anything to get him back. Sometimes when I am at home I think he will walk in again and that this has all been a bad dream. However, as each minute, each hour and each day goes by I then realise Abdul is not going to come back home. Abdul has been taken from us for ever.
‘I will never be able to get over losing a son. I feel like Abdul’s death has caused a hole in my heart and a vital organ of my body is missing. I often feel like a dead woman walking around my home.’
On leaving university, Mr Samad worked Covent helping their them computer on Garden for young trips community out. Londoners Dragon skills and charity Hall develop taking Trust, the had On promised the evening to of marry his death his girlfriend he Miss Sultana Ahmed said: Ahmed ‘We this had year. many plans for this year and the last thing Abdul said to me was, “Watch, this year will be our year and we will be a family”. He also said, “I will give my mum and dad the perfect gift in the new year – which is you as a daughter-in-law”.
‘Had we both known that this would be our last conversation ever and that he would not call me back as he had promised that night, we would have had a longer conversation. I felt like I died with Abdul that day. He took a part of me that will never come back.
‘Abdul lived for his job of helping children; he was the change we needed to see in the world. The change he brought because he wanted to brighten the future for the youths of this generation. Why would someone hurt him and snatch his life away?’ Gilmaney and Thomas, both of Maida Vale, carried out nine robberies that evening as they rode around West London taking turns to stab victims after smoking cannabis. Oliver Glasgow, QC, prosecuting, said they were ‘highwaymen of the 21st century who thought they had the right to threaten and rob whoever they found, who attacked their targets in a brazen and shocking manner and who stabbed their victims often for no reason other than simple aggression and bloodlust’. Judge Richard Marks, QC, remanded the pair in custody to be sentenced on June 15.