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00:00This was a cold and calculated murder.
00:16There's always a breaking point in an investigation.
00:24The timeline of events didn't add up.
00:30It was crucial we supported our family contact.
00:49To this day, Zenar Begum's body has never been found.
00:55What I saw there was quite astonishing.
00:57I knew that I was likely looking at the place
01:00where Zenar Begum had met her death.
01:04I was questioning him.
01:06I said, where's mum gone?
01:08When's the last time you saw her?
01:11There were some cracks appearing within the family.
01:14I remember turning to the other FLO,
01:17saying, I think he's the murderer.
01:19I was informed mid-January 2004
01:31that I needed to attend the Begum family home.
01:34I was told to notify the family of the tragic news
01:39that their mother, 56-year-old Zenar Begum,
01:42was believed to be deceased.
01:43From that moment, I became their point of contact
01:48in the murder investigation.
01:51My name is Kate Kennedy.
01:52I am a police family liaison officer,
01:54also referred to as a FLO.
01:57I'll never forget delivering what we call a death message,
02:01and it's stayed with me ever since.
02:03And the main thing with a family liaison officer
02:08is trying to build up that early rapport with the family.
02:11You are guiding them through the darkest hours in their lives.
02:14We're delivering key information to families
02:17that is absolutely heartbreaking.
02:20I've not long since come back from maternity leave,
02:24and I was relatively new in terms of being a FLO.
02:27It was an afternoon in Accrington Police Station.
02:31I've been back in the office about a week,
02:33and I became aware that there was a lady called Mrs. Begum
02:36who'd gone missing from her home address.
02:38Personally, I didn't think there was anything massively suspicious,
02:42certainly within the early days of the investigation.
02:45A lot of people do go missing.
02:47However, once you're being asked to be an FLO,
02:49clearly there's concerns that something potentially
02:52quite sinister has happened to this individual.
03:03I was a newly promoted detective inspector on the 26th of January.
03:12My name's James Elston,
03:14and I was a senior investigating officer
03:16with Lancashire Constabulary.
03:18In January 2004, I led the investigation into the disappearance of Zainab Begum.
03:24I was tasked by my DCI to review a missing from home investigation.
03:32That I was told was a 56-year-old lady of Asian heritage
03:35who'd been missing for nine days.
03:38She was last seen by a youngest daughter
03:41when she left for school on that morning the 13th,
03:44and there'd been no confirmed sightings of her
03:47during the nine days that she'd been missing.
03:49There'd been no movement through her bank account,
03:55no indication she'd withdrawn money,
03:57and she'd also left no indication as to why she may have left that house.
04:04It was clear that we needed to obtain more information from the family.
04:12And so my first priority was to identify a team of FLOs,
04:19but with a detective background.
04:22Not all FLOs come as investigators,
04:25but I felt it was crucial that we had somebody
04:28that could take a detailed and comprehensive account
04:31from the family members that could be probed and validated
04:34to ensure that we could rely 100% on the accounts
04:39that each and every family member were giving us,
04:42but also to keep an equal mind on the other side of the FLO role,
04:47and that's to make sure that they kept the family updated on the investigation.
04:52The home address that Mrs. Begum had gone missing from
04:55was a traditional terraced house on a street within Accrington itself.
04:59Well, Accrington is a former cotton town
05:01in the east of the county between Blackburn and Burnley.
05:05It has a diverse population, quite a large Asian population.
05:09So I was a uniformed officer in Accrington Town Centre.
05:12I think I worked at Accrington probably for about the first six
05:15or seven years of my policing career.
05:26Zedda Begum was last seen on the 13th of January, 2004.
05:30She was an avid walker.
05:32She would walk regularly, every day.
05:34We know she'd had a previous episode where she'd collapsed,
05:36and maybe she'd collapsed and was lying somewhere and hadn't been found.
05:41As she was described as being slightly depressed,
05:44again, we had to consider that maybe she'd taken herself off
05:46and gone somewhere to cause herself harm.
05:49Her disappearance was sudden and unexpected,
05:51but there could have been a perfectly innocent explanation.
05:54However, complacency is the enemy of a police officer.
05:58You have to consider all the potential scenarios.
06:02Myself and the other Flo are responsibilities then to go and see the family,
06:08trying to find out a little bit about Mrs. Begum,
06:10all this lady's history, the background, who they associate with.
06:16And it's more to build up that picture for the investigation team
06:19about, you know, where could she have gone?
06:28We knocked on the door and we were greeted by a number of the sisters.
06:31They were clearly concerned about mum going missing.
06:35I met with Samina and she seemed to be the spokesperson of the family.
06:39She explained the situation that her mum had gone missing
06:43and it was completely out of character.
06:47Kate was very approachable, very nice, very calm down in her tone.
06:52She told us what her role was and things that she couldn't tell us
06:58were also explained that, look, I will be able to tell you certain things,
07:01certain things I will have to withhold because of legal reasons.
07:04And, you know, we were OK with that.
07:07Samina did seem quite, well, very, very anxious that mum had gone missing.
07:12Initially, the family didn't seem to be panic-stricken.
07:15Samina did.
07:16There was a belief from some of the sisters that
07:20Zainab was probably staying with family over in West Yorkshire.
07:24There was a little bit of a difference of opinion as to what may have happened.
07:29And that led to a little bit of tension between the sisters.
07:33They thought I was mental. They thought I was over-zealous, over-anxious.
07:39They thought I was dreaming scenarios up that something had happened to her
07:45and tomorrow she was just going to walk through the door.
07:49She certainly felt that something, you know, something bad had happened to her mum.
07:52I contacted the newspapers and I said, my mum's gone missing.
07:55I gave them photographs and they ran the story.
07:59She was my mum and I loved her to bits and I wanted something done about it.
08:04I wanted to get the ball rolling as soon as.
08:13We are creatures of habit.
08:16And the information that was told to us is that mum would always be at home.
08:19She was quite traditional. She would be cleaning the house.
08:22She would be cooking within that family environment.
08:26She isn't going nowhere.
08:27She isn't going to leave that house because it was her pride and joy.
08:30The way my mum meticulously tidied that house was to the point of it was like a showroom.
08:37That's how my mum loved her home.
08:43It's vitally important, certainly in the early stages of building up that picture
08:47of the individual that's gone missing.
08:51Zena Begum was a 56 year old lady of Asian heritage.
08:55She was born in Pakistan, but I believe she moved to the UK in the 60s with her first husband.
09:01My parents came from Faisalabad in Pakistan.
09:05They migrated to Huddersfield.
09:10We lived there for about 10 years.
09:12My parents had us three, my eldest and then second eldest and then me, so I was number three.
09:20When we moved to Accrington, my mum remarried and they had another three sisters.
09:27So we have six all together.
09:30We just used to play together in the back alley, you know, late into the night in the summer months.
09:36We used to play jacks and hopscotch and things like that.
09:41And we were very close.
09:42Yeah, we'd cook together and we'd do all the chores together as well.
09:46So it was really nice, really nice growing up.
09:52My mum was highly educated for her time.
09:56She read the Koran and she taught us Urdu.
10:01And the local ladies would come over and actually learn Koran from her.
10:07She was very respected.
10:09At the time, a lot of girls were getting married straight after school.
10:13And my mum was one of these.
10:14She said, no, I want you to get an education.
10:16So she was quite forward thinking for her time.
10:19In the first nine days following the report that Zainab had been missing,
10:28a number of lines of inquiry were conducted around financial activities,
10:34telephone communications, and a very large, extensive media appeal.
10:39But all those inquiries didn't reveal anything that gave us any firm indication of
10:44where Zainab was or where she might have gone.
10:49You hope this person turns up safe and well.
10:52But the further it goes on and the longer it goes on,
10:56time dwindles and you do start to become suspicious.
11:08It was important to go back and to search Burnley Road in Accrington.
11:12That was the last place that Mrs Bagan had been seen alive.
11:16So to search it in a systematic way with officers who were trained to search
11:23and to analyse every object, every item, every article, furnishers, fixtures,
11:29to make sure that we hadn't overlooked or missed any opportunities or any potential evidence.
11:36It was in the course of that search that an officer
11:40found what we subsequently realised was the first major breakthrough.
11:46That officer saw on the wall adjacent to the bathroom what appeared to be
11:51a handprint, a partial handprint, but a handprint.
11:56And it appeared to be in blood.
11:59Within the early days and weeks of investigation,
12:10you can find that a family is an officer spending a lot of time with that family.
12:15She would make us a bruise. She would sometimes take us out as well, just to get a bit of pressure,
12:22just to have a bit of me time, anything. She was there.
12:26Mrs Bagan's family did seem to take a little bit of comfort for me and the other FLO being present.
12:33And, you know, we're quite happy offering cups of tea and cakes.
12:37And it almost became that they were trying to look after us.
12:40I certainly got the flavour with Samina, that she was like the mum of the family.
12:45That sense of love that they showed to other people was just amazing, really.
12:51We went on this journey with her, even though it was a tough time.
12:55But when she would speak to us, she was like a family member.
12:59I would say we started to trust her at that point.
13:02You are the eyes and the ears within that family.
13:05You're getting information regarding their loved one.
13:09But equally, you're getting information regarding lifestyle, potential suspects.
13:16So, yeah, I don't think you can ever underestimate the role and the importance of an FLO.
13:22The further we got into this investigation,
13:25there were some cracks appearing within the family.
13:36The FLOs were able to establish that there were some friction between Zena Begum
13:44and her son-in-law, Mohamed Arshad.
13:48We know that Mohamed and his wife had been living with Zena at Burnley Road.
13:54She then asked them to leave that address and they did.
13:57But we understand now that that didn't go down well with Mohamed Arshad.
14:05Mum had asked him to give the key back of the house.
14:08He took the key out of his pocket and he threw it at my mum.
14:19Arshad would later disclose to Samina Begum that he'd actually seen Mrs Begum,
14:26his mother-in-law at about nine o'clock on that morning after her daughter had gone to school.
14:35I was questioning him. I said,
14:37Where's mum gone? When's the last time you saw her?
14:41He maintained that he'd seen Zena on the morning of her disappearance at 9am at the address.
14:49We needed to get that in a statement so that we could probe and also to get more background on him.
14:58Arshad and Shehzad are two brothers and they were living in Pakistan, born and bred there.
15:04My mum was struggling trying to find anybody to marry my sisters to.
15:11Some relative in Pakistan had suggested that these two brothers would be potential.
15:18One was quite highly educated and the other one, he wasn't so educated, but he was his brother.
15:25And so my mum sort of said, OK, you know, let's speak to them.
15:29And after speaking to them, Shehzad got married to my sister.
15:34When Shehzad came over, he was actually like a son to her.
15:39My mum used to refer to both of my husband and Shehzad. She used to call them Laurel and Hardy.
15:46She said, Oh, Laurel and Hardy are here.
15:49So she had quite a nice relationship with him.
15:52Shehzad had always shown kindness to my sister.
15:55I'd help her with babysitting my nephew and it was a really nice time.
16:03Then it came up that it's time for the elder sister to get married.
16:07She'd finished university and she ended up getting married to Arshad.
16:13Shehzad seemed to be a good husband.
16:16So, therefore, it was assumed that Arshad would be the same.
16:20Shehzad did mention that she was concerned about Arshad and the relationship that he had with her sister.
16:27She described it as quite controlling.
16:29Arshad did not want his wife to go to work.
16:37He wanted her to be at home and be able to control her.
16:42He was the total opposite of his brother. One was treating his wife like a princess and the other
16:49would be derogatory. He was completely in charge of the house. He changed the home phone number.
16:55He changed the home phone number after mum had lived there for 20 years and she'd never changed
17:00her phone number. He was drinking beer and I saw the glass on the table and I said to my mum, I said,
17:05why are you not telling her to stop? Why is he drinking in front of you? And she goes, oh,
17:11it's all right. It's only beer. She just became really submissive. So, there must have been a lot
17:16more going on that my mum never spoke about.
17:19That information is often very, very crucial in terms of what, you know, what they're providing you
17:26with and how they feel about those individuals. So, you just record it, you take it on board,
17:32and then you report it back to the investigation team.
17:41We need to take control of the property whilst we undertook more extensive forensic examination.
17:48When we were in a position to brief the Home Office-approved forensic team specialised in the
17:54use of a chemical agent called Luminor. It was my first experience of using this technique.
18:01Luminor reacts with the iron in the haemoglobin within the blood when it's not visible.
18:09I received a call to return to Burnley Road on arrival. The house was more or less in pitched
18:16darkness. Those are the conditions that are necessary in order to see whether the Luminor reacts with
18:24anything. I was taken upstairs to the front bedroom,
18:29and what I saw there was quite astonishing. A blue-green light was clearly visible in an area to the side of the
18:38front bedroom in a sort of a pooling pattern, which I guess was probably about a metre in diameter.
18:47A significant amount of light being emitted, an astonishing amount of light. Today in my career,
18:54I'll never forget. That pooling area then seemed to then lead to what appeared to be a drag mark across
19:04the bedroom floor out of the bedroom onto the landing, down towards the front step leading to the bathroom.
19:13Not coincidentally where we'd recovered the day before the palm prints in blood.
19:22It was quite clear that there'd been a clear-up at the address, but notwithstanding the clear-up,
19:27blood was visible around the skirting, within the bathroom, around the bath taps, and on the bathroom
19:36panel. So I had mixed emotions at this point. One, in some respects, that we had a breakthrough. This was
19:46an exciting moment, but then I had to really check myself very, very quickly because
19:51I knew that I was likely looking at a place where Zena Begum had met a death and quite clearly met a
19:58death in the most horrendous of circumstances. So it was vitally important at that point that we did
20:05further forensic examination. First and foremost was identify whose blood it was and whose handprint was
20:13on the bathroom door. I was also, at that point, thinking about the family and how we'd make that
20:19announcement to them, but also to bear in mind that we had the perpetrator outstanding.
20:26And at that stage, there was a probability that perpetrator lived within the family,
20:32and so we couldn't do anything that was going to compromise that investigation.
20:44I always remember that the day, it's one of those things that does stay with you. We were told to
20:49deliver two key pieces of information. One, that we believe it's a murder investigation.
20:56And secondly, that we have evidence to suggest that Mrs. Begum had been chopped up. I think the
21:03words we used in those early days are that she'd been chopped up within the family home address, which
21:09as you can imagine, for that family hearing that information, you just can't ever get your head
21:16around how a family could take that on board. It was just a shock, just a shock. Horrific, you know,
21:25it was horrific. It was a horrible time. The floor just, I wanted it to just swallow me up. That day,
21:33I'll never forget. It haunts me. It haunts me to the core.
21:46Further searches were conducted at a local takeaway for the Millennium Takeaway on Church Street in
21:53Accrington, which both brothers had had access to. Further luminal testing was done there,
22:01and that also revealed that blood had been present at that premises within the kitchen area.
22:08That coincided with the results for the fingerprint examination. We got a positive
22:14match to Mohammed Arshad. We had his hand print on the wall next to the door frame of the bathroom door,
22:22and that was a significant moment in the investigation. On the 27th of January,
22:29Mohammed Arshad was identified as the prime suspect in the investigation.
22:34So it was a priority that his arrest was affected as soon as possible.
22:41I remember us delivering the information that he'd been arrested, and I think it was just probably
22:54shock, because even if you've got some kind of suspicions in your family, once it's been confirmed,
23:00they go through a whole array of emotions, I would suggest, from maybe disbelief to shock to upset.
23:06It can be a multitude of emotions that they could be feeling.
23:12I know this is going to sound awful, but I was elated. I am so glad, so glad now,
23:19that everyone else will have to believe what I believed on the very first day that Mum had gone
23:24missing. I knew something had happened to her, at least just as was now going to be done.
23:39We did have moments where, you know, in the sad, sad times, there was laughter to try and lighten the
23:45load. We looked at photographs of Zaina Began and the family talked about, you know, her life story
23:51and what she was as an individual. And there were times that the family would cook for us and provide
23:57food. I do remember they were feeders, which, you know, I love feeders because I feed myself, but
24:02we used to go around and it was very much like, what can we give you? They wanted to look after the
24:07FLOs. If we can do something that would help that family in that hour of need, something as basic as
24:13picking up a little bit of shopping or giving them a transport lift somewhere,
24:18and that takes that burden away from them and that added pressure, then great, we need to do that.
24:26The first time I met Arshad and Shahzad was in Crumpsell in Manchester. I was asked if I would
24:31bring Arshad back to Accrington in my vehicle. I was more than happy to do anything that would help
24:37the family just get through the next few days. It's strange really. It was quite an eerie experience.
24:43Climbed in the vehicle with a bag. Now, the bag made some kind of like, like a jingling noise. It
24:50was like a, there was something contained within this bag. And at that moment in time, I didn't know
24:54and I had no reason to, to ask what was in the bag. It was one of those surreal moments that it was
25:01almost like the hairs on my arms stood up and I, and it sounds a little bit strange and I can't
25:07explain why I felt that. But when I looked in the, um, the rear view mirror, he was staring back and he
25:13was looking at me and just did not take his eyes off me. And I remember dropping him at, back in
25:18Accrington and turning to the other FLO saying, I think he's the murderer. But at that time, I had
25:25absolutely nothing to, to warrant that feeling. It was just almost like a sixth sense that, uh,
25:32that I felt that he was the murderer and he'd been in the back of our car.
25:42Muhammad Arshad was in custody from the 28th of January to the 31st of January. And he maintained
25:50his innocence again, maintained that he had no involvement in her disappearance or her, uh, her
25:57death. The priority then was to, uh, do a, a first, uh, fast track of the DNA so we could establish
26:05whose blood was at all those, uh, scenes and particularly whose blood was in the, the handprint.
26:13I do remember this was quite a tense moment because police only have a certain amount of time to
26:19interview suspects and it was coming very close to the end of that time.
26:24We had a breakthrough on the 31st of January when, uh, confirmation came through that the blood
26:30at the scene was that of Zainab Begum. And that evidence was overwhelming proof that, uh, Muhammad
26:37Arshad's handprint had been made in the blood of the victim. And at that point, uh, Muhammad Arshad changed his story.
26:45He claimed that it was an accident. He claimed that Zainab Begum had come on to him, uh, in a sexually
26:54provocative manner whilst he was at the house. He claimed, uh, that he was outraged by her behaviour
27:00and subsequently, uh, in, in, uh, in a moment of anger pushed her hard to the ground. And at which
27:07point her head hit the, uh, the, um, the skirting, uh, and he claimed that she was dead at that point.
27:15He then went on, I think, to the surprise of the interviewing officers and certainly all those
27:21at that point connected to the investigation to describe what he did to Zainab.
27:24Uh, he dragged her from the bedroom, uh, along the landing into the bathroom. Uh, he then dismembered the
27:32body in the bathroom, uh, and then with the help of his brother, um, body parts removed from the
27:39address to the Millennium Takeaway. Muhammad Arshad claimed there was some further dismemberment
27:46overnight on the 14th of January. And then the following morning, uh, the body parts he claimed
27:53were taken to an area in Manchester where there are, uh, several, um, Asian takeaways, um, restaurants.
28:02And those body parts were deposited in the, uh, in the skips. We know the account he gave as to where
28:08he took the body parts, um, wasn't corroborated by any of the CCTV.
28:13CCTV found that there was corroboration for the body parts being moved from Burnley Road.
28:22Honda Civic was seen to pull up in the early hours of the morning and two men were, uh,
28:28were seen to, uh, to, to move bags into that vehicle and that vehicle then drove away.
28:33The following morning, uh, further CCTV from the cameras on Church Street in the town centre at
28:44Accrington showed clear images of both Muhammad Arshad and his brother moving bags out of the
28:52Millennium Takeaway again into the rear of the Honda Civic, which was then seen to drive away.
28:57There was that CCTV evidence of them transporting these boxes, which investigators believed contained
29:04the body of Mrs. Begum. And these boxes were taken on various different buses, which I believe ended up
29:12going to the Greater Manchester area.
29:14The Honda Civic belonging to Muhammad Khan was recovered on and around the, the, the, uh, 27th,
29:2228th of January and was examined, uh, again using the luminal agent revealed there was blood in the
29:28back of his car. That subsequently then to the arrest of Muhammad Khan for his involvement in her murder.
29:36Faced with that overwhelming evidence, uh, admitted assisting his brother to move the body parts from
29:44Burnley Road to the Millennium Takeaway and subsequently moved them onto Manchester.
29:55Once both the brothers had been charged with the murder of Zain and Begum, I remember speaking to all
30:01the sisters and explaining, um, what's happened. I remember it just being disbelief, uh, shock,
30:08upset, a whole multitude of, you know, emotions were at play really.
30:13The two sisters who were married to the suspects, they are still victims in this case just because
30:19the husbands have done wrong. There's no suggestion that the wives knew anything about it or they've done
30:24anything wrong. So as police officers, we would work closely with that family if they want us to.
30:28Within the first month of, uh, getting, uh, arrested, uh, my sister was heavily pregnant so she had
30:36her little baby. So for, for her, she was in a terrible, terrible stage. She was in the last stages
30:44of pregnancy and she was really struggling. Um, she had a lot of support from, uh, the FLO, the Kate,
30:51um, um, because obviously she was in a very vulnerable situation. Um, the other sister again,
30:59she had her one son. She was also struggling and, um, Kate was there for both of them.
31:04The family liaison officer guides that family and supports that family right up to the court case,
31:19which is very, very daunting. The support of the family was vital. You want them to be able to,
31:24uh, give their best evidence at court. And when you're giving evidence against a family member,
31:30it's an extremely difficult process. You do try and prepare families for it,
31:34but it is a real difficult one. And it's sometimes court cases don't always go how you expect them to go.
31:40Surprisingly, Muhammad Arshad served the defense statement very much at odds with what he'd said
31:53during the police interviews. The defense statement now claimed that, uh, he had indeed, uh, attended,
32:01Burnley Road on the morning of the 13th of January. He opened the door and let himself in and heard
32:08screaming. He claimed he went upstairs and Zainab Begin was being held by four masked men who then
32:15abducted her and took her out from the house. Suffice to say, um, it was a ridiculous, uh, assertion.
32:24I suppose that indicates really the attempts that, uh, Muhammad Arshad was prepared to go through to try and
32:31save his own skin, basically.
32:43We didn't have a body. Um, where there's no body, there's no proof of death. Um, where there's no body,
32:51there's no cause of death. So, yeah, the real tough cases to, uh, to investigate and subsequently
32:58convict individuals for. However, the case against Muhammad Arshad was strong forensically.
33:08From the examination, uh, the detailed examination taken at the scene, there was evidence of assault.
33:14Blood pattern analysis of the skirting board revealed, uh, blood described as splatter blood,
33:21which is indicative of impact into an already bleeding object that we had to assume was,
33:28was Zainab Begin. Whilst, uh, injured, she'd been breathing because we discovered there was aspirated
33:36blood on the skirting board. So, we believe that Muhammad Arshad bludgeoned, um, Zainab Begin to death.
33:46Also, Mrs. Begin's blood was contained within the handprint of the offender. So, forensic evidence
33:54was key in this investigation. So, you can't get better than a, um, the blood of the victim.
33:59So, Muhammad Arshad is quite clear from the fact that he maintained, uh, throughout the trial,
34:12this ridiculous defence, uh, that Zainab Begin had been abducted and then changed his mind and then
34:19reverted back to his original account, which he'd given an interview that, uh, that he'd caused the
34:24death accidentally, uh, that he was prepared to do anything to try and escape, uh, responsibility for
34:30what he'd done to his mother-in-law. He tried to suggest that that accident was caused by provocation
34:36on Zainab Begin's part, that she'd come on to him sexually. He was trying to put the onus on the
34:43victim, saying it was her, her responsibility, um, and, uh, tarnish her reputation.
34:50That was rubbish by the court. We did, uh, establish again through the family that, uh,
34:58he'd been trained as a butcher, um, back in Pakistan.
35:04And of course, we know, um, that, uh, Muhammad Arshad used those skills to,
35:10to literally butcher his mother-in-law, um, and then, uh, attempt to, uh, dismember, uh,
35:18and dispose of the body to, to avoid that body ever being, being found. There was also evidence
35:24revealed within the address from a duvet that there may have been a sexual element to the assault.
35:32Marks were found, uh, which indicated the semen of Muhammad Arshad on one of the duvets where blood
35:38was also recovered. So, I think there's a good reason why he didn't disclose what actually happened
35:45to her body. It's impossible to perform an autopsy without a body. Uh, Zainab Begin's body, um, could
35:54well have revealed exactly what happened to her. Ultimately, only Muhammad Arshad knows
35:59what horrendous events happened in that room. Um, it can only have been a terrifying ordeal for Zainab Begin.
36:07Shazad at the time had said that he, um, he acted on his brother's, uh, say so. He was called to the house
36:24by his brother. He quickly got in his car, Shazad did. He came straight to the house and he saw what he
36:31saw that, um, Ershad had killed mum. He was told by Ershad that if you don't help me cover this up or if you
36:42don't help me escape, I will make sure that your wife isn't alive and your child as well. I think he was
36:51genuinely intimidated by his brother. It doesn't in any way exonerate him from what he's done, um, from the
36:58lies he's told, um, and from, uh, the actions that he's taken. He could have disclosed to his wife,
37:06he could have disclosed to Samina or any of the family what his brother had done, but he chose instead
37:12to, uh, assist his brother in what was a horrendous chain of events. I think Ershad was such a control
37:20freak that not only was he controlling his brother and his behaviour, he was still controlling my sister's
37:28behaviour. All four of my sisters were not, not forthcoming with anything that had happened.
37:43We felt we had a strong case, a strong forensic case, but murder trials, uh, where there's no body,
37:50um, have challenges. You hope within your heart, certainly as a family as an officer,
37:55you know, within your heart, you want to get the answers for that family.
38:00It's now my belief that Muhammad Arshad resented the fact that Zainab Begum was strong-willed,
38:08an independent woman, uh, who had strong networks and was very much the matriarchal figure within the,
38:15uh, within the family dynamic. We also know that there was some financial interest in the home.
38:23Ashad and Shahzad, I think, essentially got very, very greedy. They potentially wanted some of, uh,
38:29Zainab Begum's money, and if she wasn't on the scene, if she wasn't around, potentially,
38:34both the brothers could have benefited from her estate.
38:38He had dreams of this, owning a business, and the reason why they chose a takeaway was,
38:44um, because it was quick money, basically.
38:47Ashad and his brother had taken an interest in the millennium takeaway. They'd put a down deposit,
38:53I believe, of £3,000, and a further deposit of £30,000 was due on that lease.
39:00All these things may have been a motive for why he subsequently went on to, uh, to kill her.
39:06Only Muhammad Arshad ultimately knows, uh, the motive.
39:10On the 10th of December 2004, the jury at Preston Crown Court returned a verdict against
39:24Muhammad Arshad of Guilty for the murder of Zainab Begum. His brother, Muhammad Khan,
39:30was convicted of assisting his brother in the disposal of the body of Zainab Begum.
39:36I was absolutely elated, as you can imagine. What I thought was my brothers, brother-in-laws,
39:42I-I thought they would always look out for my mum, but they didn't do anything of the sort.
39:47Muhammad Arshad was subsequently sentenced. He received a life term of imprisonment,
39:54the only sentence available for murder, with a 24-year tariff. His brother, Muhammad Khan,
40:01he received a seven-year sentence for his involvement in that crime.
40:06To this day, Zainab Begum's body has never been found.
40:11We never even had chance to say goodbye to her, to be there, to bury her. We didn't get that chance.
40:18They haven't got somewhere that they can go on, like, significant birthdays and anniversaries.
40:23So that's just been stripped and taken away from them.
40:26So only Muhammad Arshad really knows the final whereabouts and resting place of Zainab Begum.
40:35Samina and her family, I-I can imagine to this day, will never get closure on what has been an
40:41absolutely appalling, horrific event in their lives.
40:44He hid the fact from his own wife that he had done such a brutal act to his mother-in-law, to his wife's mum.
40:56You know, the lady who looked after you, who gave you her daughter, who cooked, cleaned, washed up for you,
41:04who treated you like a son. And you-you repair her in such a disgusting way in-in-in killing her.
41:15He hurt me to the core. I-I despise the man.
41:21I don't even call him a man. I think he's a creature from hell.
41:26And what stuck in my mind is the humility and the-the strength shown by the Begum family.
41:34They were satisfied we'd done our job, and that made me feel very, very humble.
41:39I recall, together with Kate, we were invited by the-the Begum family and Samina to their home address
41:46in Accrington. Uh, and we shared a-uh, we shared a-uh, a typical Asian curry with them,
41:53made by all the women in the house. Um, and it was a-uh, a very moving and emotional time.
42:02I think of all the cases I've dealt with, this case will stand out, uh, for-uh, forever more.
42:08It's possibly 20 years ago since I've seen the family, and probably Samina was the one that I
42:23tended to spend more time chatting to her, um, than anybody else. So, I don't know if I'd
42:28recognise her now. I don't think-I certainly don't think she'd recognise me now.
42:32I'm a little bit nervous, if I'm honest, because you often think you've done the right thing by
42:51the families, but do they, you know, is that how they interpret it? It's been a long time, hasn't it?
42:58Too long. It was really nice of you to come, and you'd come on a daily basis, you'd inform us of
43:04what was happening behind the scenes, um, at the police investigation, how it was going,
43:09and we really appreciated it, you know. It was done in a really nice, sensitive way,
43:13um, and-and, you know, it was really helpful. Well, that's nice to know, because sometimes you
43:19don't know that, you know, that you're doing a good job, and, you know, I met you and your family,
43:23and you're clearly a lovely family. You didn't have that closure because there is no body that
43:27you can go and see and pay your respects to your mum, so it's a real-it's a real difficult one.
43:33To be a family as an officer, I think the crucial thing is that you are empathetic,
43:38that you are completely understanding of that family, because it's not only the person that's,
43:42you know, this tragedy's happened to, that family are victims as well.
43:46I-I miss her so, so much, you will not believe. Four months after, uh, she went missing,
43:54uh, and I knew she'd passed away, I would go into town and I would see women, uh, and-and I would
44:02think, oh, that's mum, and I just kept thinking, you know, maybe there's, like, a chance that she's-she's
44:08still here. Are they mistaken? Yeah. Again, that's a natural thing, isn't it? I mean, on her, uh, birthday,
44:14I still celebrate, I still get a Mother's Day card on Mother's Day, yeah, yeah, and, uh, when it's her
44:21death anniversary, I-I was in Pakistan this year, so I had, um, like, a week. Oh, yeah? And all the food
44:29that we cooked, uh, we gave it to the-the poor and just distributed it there, so I do that every year.
44:34Did that help, do you think? It was very cathartic, yeah, very, very nice, and, uh, I am a lot more,
44:41um, and I know I don't look it, but I am a lot more religious than-than people think, you know,
44:46and I-I do still have prayer readings every Thursday, um, and it really helps me to, uh,
44:53remember, mum, and pray for us all. I-I don't think I could have got through it,
44:59and I don't think I could have moved on. Uh, I've since moved on with my life, and I-I put things
45:04into perspective, whereas, uh, had I not had the FLO, I don't think I would put things into
45:11perspective the way she did. Um, she actually helped me, uh, she was almost like a counsellor,
45:17yeah. And you should be proud, because, you-you know, you have moved forward, haven't you? Yeah.
45:21You know, you've gone on to have your family, you've got a career, so your mum would be really,
45:25really proud of you. Yeah. When my mum died, it was like half the family had died. It was that
45:36traumatic. It's the best person, best caring, loving, uh, affectionate person that you-that could ever
45:45be in their family. And, um, I just feel like she's a big, big loss.
45:50I think this case will definitely stick with me. You know, the tragedy that happened to this family,
45:56um, and a lovely lady, Zena Began, a loving, caring family lady who just wanted the best for her daughters.
46:20and, um, and-so-lust.
46:24That's it.
46:24That's it.
46:26So,
46:28that's it.
46:33So,
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