The mother of a man who took his own life after being targeted by a scam on the gay dating app Grindr, tells the ACT's Children court her "beautiful and kind" son was "snatched from life".

The woman's victim impact statement was read to the court by her husband during a sentencing hearing for a 17-year-old boy who pleaded guilty to blackmailing the man.

The boy has also pleaded guilty to blackmailing a second man, and growing cannabis in his bedroom, which the court heard he learned to do from research on the internet.

The victim's mother's impact statement read out in court stated her son "had everything to live for" but was "snatched from life".

His mother said she was experiencing a lot of pain and grief at losing her "beautiful, kind, gentle, loving son".

The court heard how the boy and some friends had lured the victim to the Mawson shops where they made him withdraw money from an ATM, and handover his phone, or they would tell people he was a child molester.

But the pursuit did not end there, with the boy later turning up at the victim's house, which escalated his fears and ended in tragedy.

The boy had also documented the group's activities keeping notes on who they had targeted and collected money from.

The court heard various accounts including that the boy had been driven by financial gain, and he had done what he did because of the abuse of his father when he was a child.

A pre-sentence report documents comments on the boy's belief that gay people are paedophiles.

His lawyer Hugh Jorgensen acknowledged the concern.

"Clearly there are some issues he needs to work through," he said.

But Mr Jorgensen said the boy had prospects of rehabilitation and had shown remorse in social media comments after he found out about the death.

In one message he stated: "Even though he's a paedophile he did not deserve that."

In another he said: "I am honestly devastated, I'm honestly shocked."

Mr Jorgensen also urged the court not to make a finding that the boy caused the death.

"You can never know what caused that person to take their own life," Mr Jorgensen said.

Clear homophobic element to offences: prosecution

But Prosecutor Sara Gul pointed to another message where the boy stated: "I contributed to a sick bastard killing himself."

Ms Gul said there was a clear homophobic element to the commission of these offences.

She said it was also glib to suggest there was no way for the court to say we do not know why the man took his own life.

Ms Gul said the boy may not have foreseen the event, but it was a consequence.

She also took aim at the social media element in the case.

"We live in a social media age ... this is a new breed of offending, millennials offending.

"Young people do not understand the affect it can have."

Ms Gul said the boys' comments had been staggering in their lack of remorse.

She called for a custodial sentence.

The boy will be sentenced on Friday.