[UPDATED] Family of man shot by policeman: ‘Friends caused his death’

THE father of a man who was shot by an off-duty police officer during an attempted robbery is warning young people about the dangers of peer pressure.

Around 5.30 pm on March 24, Ferdan Thomas, 21, and an accomplice tried to rob the officer, who was waiting outside a mechanic’s garage in Curepe.

The officer fired several shots at Thomas and the unknown accomplice as he ran away.

Thomas was found afterwards in the driver's seat of the policeman’s car.

A male relative said Thomas, a Fatima College graduate, refused to listen to his family's advice about his friends.

“He is a loving child. He always hugging and kissing his family. A really nice boy.

“But it’s just the wrong friends. This is not Ferdan. It’s just the wrong set of friends he followed, the wrong set of people.”

The relative said several male figures in Thomas’s life spoke with him repeatedly but he refused to listen.

“I fed up talk to him. It ent have days I didn’t talk to him. It ent have what we ent try, we treat Ferdan nice, but it’s the wrong company and it’s the wrong friends.”

The relative said they even tried a different route to get through to him by reminding him about the dangers nowadays and the state of things in the country.

“I put him to sit down and explained to him, long time is not like now. Things you could get away with long time is not things you can get away with now. It's two different times.”

He said these conversations were all in vain.

“I realised he used to smoke marijuana, but smoking marijuana doesn’t make you a bad person. So I told him if he wants to smoke, then smoke inside, smoke in the drawing room and the bedroom, so he didn’t have to go sit down on a block. Nobody could ever say they see him sitting down on the block and them kind of things.”

The relative said in the end, Thomas’s friends used him.

“These are fellas who come up there to live and they are just not a good influence. They know the privileges he had and they advantaged him.”

Despite this, the relative urged people to not give up on talking to their children about the dangers of peer pressure.

“To the young parents like myself out there, please don’t give up. Just don’t give up on them. They might be harden, they might not want to listen to you, but please just don't give up on them. Just still hold them, because I wish I had Ferdan,” he said, as his voice trailed off in tears.

This story has been updated to include additional details. See original story below with the headline 'Family of man shot by policeman says friends caused his death'.

THE father of a man who was shot by an off-duty police officer during an attempted robbery is warning young people about the dangers of peer pressure.

Around 5.30 on March 24, Ferdan Thomas, 21, and an accomplice tried to rob the officer, who was waiting outside a mechanic’s garage in Curepe.

The officer fired several shots at Thomas and the unknown accomplice as he ran away.

Thomas was found afterwards in the driver's seat of the policeman’s car.

A male relative said Thomas, a Fatima College graduate, refused to listen to his family's advice about his friends.

“He is a loving child. He always hugging and kissing his family. A really nice boy.

"But it’s just the wrong friends. This is not Ferdan. It’s just the wrong set of friends he followed, the wrong set of people."

The relative said several male figures in Thomas’s life spoke with him repeatedly but he refused to listen.

“I fed up talk to him. It ent have days I didn’t talk to him.”