- 1 day ago
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00In February 2004, human remains had been found at the side of the River Kent in Sedgwick, in the Lake District.
00:23The remains themselves were actually found just metres from the road
00:28in the undergrowth here.
00:31A really remote and quite lonely spot, really.
00:37There'd been a lot of rain, the river had overflowed.
00:42And when those water levels dropped, that's when these remains were discovered.
00:51No idea how this person had died or any more details,
00:55but I knew in my gut who it was.
00:59I didn't know who it was.
01:00I didn't know who it was.
01:01Six years would pass before reports of an armed robbery in suburbia
01:04led Detective Chief Inspector Geraint Jones
01:06to discover the death of the River Kent.
01:07Six years would pass before reports of an armed robbery in suburbia
01:11led Detective Chief Inspector Geraint Jones
01:13to discover what had happened to the remains found in the Cumbrian countryside.
01:20I've always had a close eye on this case.
01:21Obviously it had been with me for a long time.
01:22I was in holiday in France and I got a phone call from a colleague to say,
01:23she's dead.
01:24She's dead.
01:25She's dead.
01:26She's dead.
01:27She's dead.
01:28She's dead.
01:29She's dead.
01:30She's dead.
01:31She's dead.
01:32She's dead.
01:33She's dead.
01:34She's dead.
01:35She's dead.
01:36She's dead.
01:37She's dead.
01:38She's dead.
01:39I've always had a close eye on this case.
01:41Obviously it'd been with me for a long time.
01:45I was in holiday in France and I got a phone call from a colleague to say,
01:49she's talking.
01:50And I knew straight away what he meant.
01:53The family kept gold in the house, instead of using a bank account.
02:00so the family report to the police basically that someone's broken in the house threatened
02:06them with weapons and took their gold but when a family member was arrested and interviewed for
02:13carrying out the robbery a much darker story began to unfold about what had happened behind
02:19closed doors at the house in great sankey warrington
02:23events that took dci jones and his team back to 2003 when local girl 17-year-old shafilia ahmed was
02:34reported missing the shafilia was a 17-year-old girl from warrington she went to school at great
02:49sankey high school then into the sixth form she went missing we got the press release from cheshire
03:02police to say she fairly had gone missing that was it was a missing persons appeal but i knew as soon
03:11as it came in i don't know why but you sometimes you get a sense as a journalist something is gonna
03:17be a bit different and she really came in i'd looked at the picture and i said to the news team
03:21this is going to develop into something
03:24warrington it's just a normal northern town you know nothing outstanding nothing really remarkable
03:39about it in between liverpool and manchester just like any northern town when something big happens
03:50in warrington everybody talks about it and everybody knows what is going on but who was the girl everybody
04:00was talking about who was shafilia ahmed shafilia lived at home with the mum and dad she had three
04:09sisters and a brother all of whom were younger than her she was at college she had a dream of becoming a
04:18lawyer from what her friends said about her she was bubbly really intelligent really ambitious and you know
04:28really really wanted to make something of a life she was someone who really loved her younger siblings
04:40they would have dancing contests or singing contests she's someone that really i think loved life
04:49as happy as shafilia seemed to the outside world at home where the traditional values of her parents
04:56farzana and iftika were taken to the extreme things were very different from what we know about shafilia
05:04now her home life with her parents was absolutely horrendous she's made a lot of friends at school
05:12and at college wanting to spend time with them but her mom and dad didn't want her to do that
05:17their culture was completely different
05:19i'm nina oak i'm an activist i speak out against honor-based violence i survived on myself at the
05:28hands of my family and now i train the police shafilia and i both shared a similar upbringing in the sense
05:36of girls are not wanted in our culture there's a lot of violence there's a lot of control from my own
05:43experience living in a culture where honor-based abuse is rife when you go home from school your
05:50heart sinks you don't want to be there it definitely wasn't a home where she would have felt safe
05:58she was abused quite badly physically but also emotionally she would be beaten
06:04a lot of the things that i think triggered the violence at home was what we would consider normal
06:13she wants to dress in a certain way or she wants to have contact with boys but her parents found this
06:21very very difficult the result of that would be that she feel it was very heavily controlled
06:27it was later revealed that shafilia had tried to break free from the abuse by running away from home
06:36that her attempt at freedom was short-lived she was found brought back against her will
06:41drugged and then forced onto a flight to pakistan
06:48as the investigation progressed we were told that shafilia had actually been taken to pakistan
06:53for a forced marriage while she was there she had drunk bleach to avoid this arranged marriage
07:01because her mum had told her she was going to stay in pakistan
07:07you can't imagine how desperate you would be to have to drink bleach she was trying to end her life
07:16her dad explained that away by saying shafilia had mistakenly drunk bleach
07:23instead of mouthwash it was totally accidental and that's what she told the doctors here in the
07:30hospital when she came back as well forgive me but how do you drink a bottle of bleach accidentally
07:35it wasn't actually a bottle of bleach that she drank it was just a sip that she mistakenly taken it as a
07:42mouthwash so she was incredibly poorly with that she was in hospital in pakistan for a while then got
07:49so ill she was brought back to warrington straight to hospital after months recovering from the severe
07:56damage to her throat shafilia eventually returned to college but on the 18th of september 2003
08:04police received a phone call it came about that the teacher at school heard rumors that shafilia wasn't
08:14around anymore that teacher was aware of some of the issues that were going on in the house
08:21the house so she alerted the place when the police went to the house to carry out a missing person
08:33investigation they initially talked to fazana who said she couldn't speak english and for them to wait
08:40for her husband iftika to come home when the police went to the house iftika told the officers that
08:48she feel he had run away similarly to how she had run away a couple of years before in that she'd gone in
08:55the night and put the keys through the letterbox and they hadn't seen her since
09:102003 and police were still searching for schoolgirl shafilia ahmed shafilia ahmed disappeared 11 weeks ago
09:18it's thought she fled her family because they were arranging a marriage for her she's in need of regular
09:23medical treatment after swallowing a caustic substance my suspicions grew very quickly that she feel his
09:34disappearance was not right the emerging picture of a girl that had been kept prisoner in the house
09:45been subject to domestic abuse and talk of being forced into marriage in pakistan so there was little
09:53bits culminating in a big picture that these parents were abusing shafilia and were somehow involved in a
10:01disappearance the police were contacted that a pharmacy in edinburgh had some footage of a girl
10:11that they said looked like shafilia so that video was collected and shown to iftika and fazana
10:19they indicated that it's shafilia and basically said well that's it then is that okay she seems okay
10:31unusual so we showed the video to the school teacher as well
10:37she said that didn't look like shafilia
10:39it transpires when we did some more inquiries that that girl was not shafilia it was a turkish girl
10:48who was bigger than shafilia as well and really when you look at images of shafilia you'd be quite
10:53clear that it's not her so again it rose more suspicion on the family that why would they say it was her when
11:01they know better than anyone else as the search for shafilia continued local journalist claire hannah
11:10realized that this was no ordinary missing persons investigation
11:16as time went on it grew bigger because i think the police had an inkling straight away
11:25that something wasn't right because her parents it wasn't them that had initially reported her missing
11:31it was a college that had flagged it up and then as the police looked more into it it became a bigger
11:36story there was an actress called shabna gulati she read some of shafilia's poems out i don't pretend
11:43like with a perfect family no more desire to live is burning my stomach is turning but they all think it's about honor
11:55we just knew that something was different as suspicion grew about iftika and fazana ahmed's
12:03involvement in their daughter's disappearance geraint jones turned to forensics for answers
12:12when conducting these type of investigations of serious crime there's extensive searching and forensic
12:18work so in shafilia's house there was a thorough examination looking for any evidence of a crime
12:26blood
12:32a lot of work on mobile telephones now this was back in 2003 so the the evidence available from mobile
12:39telephones was a bit more challenging to obtain than it is today
12:43during this investigation we carried out what we call intrusive surveillance into the house at great
12:51sankey to see if we could obtain evidence and intelligence as to what's happened to shafilia or
12:59where she might be what we found was that the language they spoke punjabi was a challenging language for
13:07us to find an accredited interpreter
13:17what was emerging as the tapes were transcribed was that there was clear indication that these two were
13:26involved there was a lot of arguing and pointing of fingers but mainly they were talking about how
13:34to get off it and what the police would be doing rather than the act itself of killing her and that
13:40was a frustrating part where they didn't actually at any time say they'd killed her on that audio recording
13:48as the investigation intensified shafilia's parents appeared on tv with iftika asserting their innocence
13:55and denying any involvement in their daughter's disappearance would we kill our own daughter
14:02how would you never
14:06couldn't even dream of it
14:09with time going on and all the evidence being gathered and all the circumstances presented
14:15this was moving from a suspicious disappearance to something quite different and at that point
14:22i was treating this case as a murder investigation
14:30six months after shafilia went missing in the september we got a press release about human remains
14:37being discovered at the side of a river
14:39i was listening out all the time for any news or any bulletins in policing about bodies being found
14:46and i was driving into work and i heard on the northwest news that our body had been found
14:54in cumbria of a female this body was badly decomposed and the work they'd done so far had been unable to
15:04identify her as soon as the press release landed in the inbox to say a body had been found
15:14i actually said to the news team that's shafilia i would stake my life on it i don't know how i knew
15:20but i just knew it was but decomposition meant the identity of the body on the riverbank would remain
15:29a mystery until forensic scientists stepped in
15:35when a body is found in a decomposed state there are a number of challenges that the pathologist
15:40would face in identifying the body the discoloration of the skin could make it difficult for example to
15:48tell the ethnicity of the person the facial features may change because of the decomposition
15:55rendering it impossible to know who the person was for example from comparison with a photograph
16:01and then as decomposition advanced you would lose soft tissue there may be interference by animals
16:09insects that change state of the body further
16:12the body may become disarticulated so parts of the body could fall away or be taken away by scavenging
16:21animals all of this would make it very difficult to identify an individual
16:27i made contact again with the cumbria police and asked them to send the dental records of this body that
16:43they'd found so that came through and we quickly took that dental chart to shafira's dentist they said
16:54there's some real similarities but the difference was there are two white fillings and shafira's lower
17:01teeth and they're not on this chart so close but not shafira but there was something about the way the
17:12family were behaving and all the circumstances to me i just wasn't satisfied with that
17:19as a senior investigating officer it's ingrained in you to absolutely check everything so i thought
17:28right i'm not happy with this so i traveled up to cumbria because there was something that wasn't quite
17:34right i then asked to look at the mandible which is the lower jaw that the police had recovered and i
17:41could actually physically see the white fillings that had been described by the dentist i seized the
17:49mandible with the intent to show it to shafira's dentist mr southern her dentist looked at that
17:56mandible that day and confirmed that the dental work is his and that is highly likely to be shafira
18:03so we were now armed with the fact that the dental records are showing this is shafira but we needed
18:13more alongside dental records jewelry that was found on the body was identified by her parents as being
18:22similar to that which shafira would have worn all clues pointed to who the body was but it was the key
18:29component of every modern day forensic investigation that would provide ultimate proof in cases where
18:37the soft tissue of the body has been lost and you are left with skeletal remains dna becomes vital in
18:45identifying the body in such cases this dna would be taken from bone typically from the bone marrow within
18:55the femur the thigh bone the identification of shafira was properly done through dna by obtaining a sample
19:06of bone marrow and that took a few days to get through i knew it was going to be shafira and when that dna
19:16evidence came through it was a sense of real momentum with dna proving who the body was scientists now
19:27had to turn their forensic expertise to finding out how shafira had died in this case because of the
19:34the nature of where the body was found and the fact that this was a young person with no no natural
19:40disease and the overtly suspicious background circumstances the pathological findings or lack
19:46of them was was somewhat less important so a natural cause of death was ruled out on that basis rather
19:52than the pathological findings themselves
20:00so the pathologist once she knew it was shafira would know that this is a 17 year old girl that just
20:05wouldn't curl up and die so her conclusion was that some form of asphyxia would be the cause of death
20:19she was just driven up there in the dead of night just thrown at the side of the road
20:27like a piece of rubbish just a really lonely dark undignified
20:32awful spot and she was just left there like a piece of rubbish
20:40it made me really sad
20:44i came home it seemed like a normal day but something wasn't right
20:49i wish i could have changed the event i should have killed myself instead i'd rather have been dead
21:02a woman's life that she could have been dead and he was interested in getting a dead dead
21:06it was a suicide so her story was one of the things she had died
21:08it was very light that she had been dead and she would have been dead and notpi
21:11it was the history of the terrorist that she was born and settled and perhaps she was born
21:13and he was able to find a suspect that she got injured and even harder to find a infant
21:17so her family came under her father had just not had to be the nightmare
21:20when I'm informed about a case I'm normally told very little about it I was just told that a body
21:31had been found by the River Kent near Sedgwick in Cumbria and I was asked to attend there
21:38the questions that the police wanted me to help answer were how long Shafelia's body had been
21:48there how long she had been deceased and whether she had actually died at the scene or whether her
21:54body had been deposited there after death when an animal or a human dies the body starts to
22:02decompose straight away and so insects will come in and they will start colonizing the body so with
22:09forensic entomology if I can work out how old those insects are that gives me the minimum time that
22:15the body has been deceased what was now crucial to the investigation was establishing when Shafelia
22:23had died it was down to forensic entomologist Amaret Whitaker to find that key evidence the most
22:32important insects for me are the blowflies so those are blue bottles and green bottles and the reason
22:38for that is because they are generally the first insects to find the body and in this case I did
22:47find a species of blue bottle blowfly called callifera vomitoria associated with the body because the
22:56insects development rate is dependent on the temperature it means that in the summertime in
23:03warm temperatures the insects will develop very quickly and so it may be that within a couple of
23:08weeks or so the insects have gone through a full life cycle and so you can't really go any further
23:14back than a couple of weeks or so the fact that Shafelia's body was found during the wintertime was
23:20actually really useful because what it meant was that there were still insects developing both on the
23:26body and also in the surrounding soil so clearly they were associated with her body and so that meant
23:33that I was able to give quite an accurate minimum time since death I estimated that the insects had
23:41been colonizing the body at least since the beginning of October so around the 9th or 10th of October that
23:49was approximately a month after Shafelia had gone missing so although the minimum time since death was October it's
23:58more than possible that the body was colonized any time between when Shafelia's body was deposited at
24:06the scene when she died and that date that I gave of 9th or 10th of October one of the implications that
24:17was made to the police was that Shafelia may have just run away from home and may have been living
24:23elsewhere and that potentially she had only died relatively recently and not when she went missing
24:28so what I was able to suggest with the analysis that I did was that she had actually died soon after
24:37she had gone missing it suggested that the circumstances were perhaps suspicious and that
24:48therefore the police should continue their investigation
24:53Amaret's findings proved that Shafelia must have died on or shortly after the last known
24:59sighting of her on the 11th of September 2003 this placed Iftika and Farzana Ahmed firmly in the frame as
25:08prime suspects for the murder of their eldest daughter
25:12the press conference took place it was full there was live television cameras this term
25:20honor killing is not a term that I've used during this inquiry we are treating this as simply as a
25:26murder inquiry however the press conference came to an abrupt end I was made aware that Iftika and
25:35Farzana had come into the conference room so I made an escape uninvited unannounced
25:41Shafelia's parents arrived to deny any involvement in their daughter's death iftika and Farzana actually
25:49barged their way into that press conference with their legal team to accuse Cheshire police of profiling of
25:59stereotyping that inquiry should be conducted with transparency rather than being based upon any form of
26:07ethnic stereotyping immediately trying to control the situation point the finger at the police to absolve themselves of any blame
26:17however the Ahmed's cultural background and the notion of honor within the community became a major part of the investigation
26:28iftika and Farzana come from a village in Pakistan a village that culture is very important that the male the patriarch of the family is in control
26:42and the women are the ones who carry the honor of the family and that mentality or behavior continued with them
26:53so for him his family were the perfect family his girls would conform and be the way they should in his mind
27:07and Farzana was the enforcer of that
27:14I do understand the concept of shame and honor because it's a very real thing when you grow up in the in the culture in the home in the community
27:23it's it's it's really a real thing where you grow up to not want to do things that might shame your mom and dad in a community setting
27:34I think her mom and dad was so obsessed with the the standing in the community and how they looked and they were so afraid of one of the children bring shame to them
27:46Shevelia's parents came from a Muslim Pakistani background
27:53I know that her father moved to this country when he was quite young from a village in Gujarat
28:01where people would tend to have the same mindset the same cultural rules almost
28:07it's like an unspoken way of living your life
28:12it's not because she was Muslim it's because of culture because a lot of people blame the religion
28:16it's not the religion it's the cultural mentality
28:20as strongly as the police believed they had the right suspects the Ahmed's continued to protest their innocence
28:26months after Shevelia's disappearance the two sides of the investigation had reached a stalemate
28:32I had a briefing with the barrister and he got to a point where he said there are strong aspects of the case
28:45that could well result in the prosecution and conviction of if to come Farzana but based a lot on circumstantial evidence
28:53so at that point the decision of the CPS was there was insufficient evidence for prosecution
29:00the inquest into Shevelia's death took place it was about four and a half years after Shevelia's body was found
29:12it took place at Kendall Town Hall and it was so important we know inquests don't blame anyone
29:19they just established the circumstances of the death really significantly at the inquest the coroner's verdict
29:28the coroner said Shevelia was the victim of a very vile murder
29:37during the inquest Shevelia's parents presented themselves as they have all along really there's kind of an arrogance
29:45with them and they kind of just look like they think they've done nothing wrong
29:50and Iftikar in particular just like you know I've done nothing wrong really really arrogant and Farzana
29:57for me she had quite a chilling air about her
30:02I could never understand she had given birth to Shevelia
30:07Despite the efforts of detectives and forensics the investigation into Shevelia's death made little progress
30:15even after the coroner's inquest concluded her death was unnatural and suspicious there were still no clear leads
30:24for a long time justice seemed out of reach
30:28there was insufficient evidence to bring Iftik and Farzana to court but strong suspicion that they'd been responsible for murder
30:37so we were left hanging I would describe it seeking more evidence
30:44my own feeling was that it just needed someone from the family to open up
30:50without evidence from within the family we would never get them prosecuted
30:56Geraint would have to wait another two years before receiving the news he wanted
31:02I was in holiday in France and I got a phone call from a colleague to say she's talking
31:09and I knew straight away what he meant
31:13it transpired that Alicia Shevelia's sister was in police custody on suspicion of robbery
31:19and whilst in custody she revealed the striking events that occurred on the 11th of September 2003
31:30from what we understand Alicia had staged a robbery at the family home she's been arrested
31:37while she's in custody she says I saw my mum and dad kill my sister and that changed everything
31:52detectives had determined that Alicia Ahmed like Shevelia had been a victim of her parents abuse and control
32:11and in order to retrieve money taken from her she staged a robbery
32:16once in the safety of police custody the truth about what had happened to her older sister finally emerged
32:28I had a telephone call in 2010 from Cheshire police
32:35they told me that there'd been an armed robbery at an address in Warrington
32:39and that a family member had been arrested because she was believed to be involved in the robbery
32:46she had been taken into interview and she asked for the interview to be suspended
32:54and she said that she wished to speak to police officers
32:58in an informal conversation with police officers
33:01she told them that she had witnessed her parents killing her sister
33:06I then had the witness that prosecution counsel had wished that he had had in 2005
33:27this was a long period of my life starting in 2003 through to 2012
33:33a long court case
33:36a dramatic court case with lots of twists and turns
33:40when the trial started
33:42obviously the media interest was huge
33:44Chester Crown Court
33:45it's a huge old courtroom
33:47the press gallery was packed
33:49at the start of the trial
33:50and you know
33:51a real feeling amongst the journalists
33:54you know
33:55we recognised the significance of this
33:57that it was important
33:59we wanted to tell Shevelia's story
34:00and how long it had taken to get them to court
34:03so there was a real
34:04a buzz is the wrong word
34:06it was just
34:07you know
34:08everybody really excited
34:10that we were going to see justice for Shevelia
34:13it was quite a long trial
34:17I've never
34:19seen a trial like it
34:21in my life
34:22today father 52 year old Iftika Ahmed
34:25and mother 49 year old Farzana
34:28went on trial accused of murder
34:31Alicia Ahmed had told police that she would be willing to testify against her own parents
34:37in court
34:42it would appear that Alicia's evidence was the final piece of the puzzle to Shevelia's murder
34:47but her credibility as a witness quickly fell into question
34:52there were various issues around Alicia's evidence
34:56clearly
34:58she
34:59was at odds with her parents
35:01there was also the problem that Alicia
35:05had made a statement earlier on supporting the parents account
35:09to the effect that Shevelia had run away in the night
35:12the two cases had to be handled separately
35:18so that it couldn't be suggested that she was given preferential treatment
35:22with regard to the robbery in return for her evidence in the murder case
35:29there was a fear that she might be at risk of violence from the extended family
35:34or from members of the community who felt that
35:37in giving evidence against her parents
35:39she was breaking some sort of code
35:45Alicia was in witness protection
35:48I was very relieved
35:49when Alicia finally gave her evidence in court
35:56when she was giving her evidence
35:57you could have heard a pin drop in the courtroom
36:00Alicia's evidence
36:02although given behind screens
36:04so no one in the court could see her
36:07was sharp
36:09emotional
36:11and resilient
36:13despite
36:14having
36:15significant cross-examination by two barristers
36:19representing Iftica and Farzana
36:21she remained consistent
36:23honest
36:24and reliable
36:25throughout her testimony
36:28Alicia
36:29Alicia
36:30gave evidence
36:31in such a way
36:33that
36:34it was
36:35obvious to everybody in the courtroom
36:38that she was actually describing something she had seen
36:42it wasn't a fabricated story
36:45she was describing
36:47events
36:48to which she was a witness
36:49despite
36:50Alicia's composure
36:52under cross-examination
36:54her involvement in the robbery
36:55was seized upon
36:56by the defense
36:58I remember
36:59reading
37:00online
37:01the trial reports
37:03and
37:04Alicia was the first witness
37:06and
37:08what she was saying
37:09was a hundred percent true
37:11I remember reading
37:12how
37:13in cross-examination
37:14they were trying to paint her as a liar
37:16and
37:18I remember thinking
37:19she's not a liar
37:20she's not lying about this
37:22up until this point
37:25the prosecution's case
37:26hung on Alicia
37:28as their star witness
37:30that was until
37:31new evidence came to light
37:33in the form of letters
37:34written years earlier
37:36by younger sister
37:37Mevish
37:38to family friend
37:39Shaheen Mania
37:41Mevish explained to me that
37:42during the day
37:44a family friend
37:45had called her mum
37:47to gossip
37:48to complain
37:49about what Shafila
37:50was wearing
37:52in town
37:53that they didn't approve
37:54and I think
37:55this had made
37:56her mum quite angry
38:00and when it came to
38:01later in the day
38:02to pick Shafila up
38:03from work
38:04Shafila had forgotten
38:05her coat
38:06and was only wearing a t-shirt
38:08so when they were in the car
38:10her mum was really angry
38:12and Mevish said to me
38:15that she remembered
38:16Shafila actually being
38:17really quiet
38:19almost resigned
38:21it's almost like she knew
38:25Alicia described how
38:27they were all in the living room
38:30there'd been an argument
38:32Farzana pushed Shafila down onto the settee
38:38and said something along the lines of
38:40just finish it
38:41just finish it here
38:42Mrs. Ahmed was really angry
38:49they went and got a plastic bag
38:54and her mum and dad
38:57held her down
38:58and covered her mouth
39:01and they used this bag
39:02to suffocate her
39:03and they used this bag
39:04to suffocate her
39:05and they used this bag
39:06and they used this bag
39:07to suffocate her
39:13I'll never get the image
39:14out of my head
39:15the terror
39:16in her eyes
39:18it's just horrific
39:20that poor girl
39:22that poor beautiful girl
39:24the children had seen
39:26like the life
39:29got out of Shafila
39:41Shaheen's testimony
39:43validated what Alicia
39:44had told police
39:45that on the 11th of September 2003
39:49her parents had murdered Shafila
39:51in front of her younger siblings
39:54very brave girl
39:55very brave girl
39:56Shaheen
39:57the fact that she'd said
39:58I saw this trial was happening
39:59I heard what was going on
40:00I knew it was wrong
40:01and I knew I could make a difference
40:02and that's why she came forward
40:04because she knew it was wrong
40:05so she did the right thing
40:07really brave
40:08being a witness
40:09being a witness in a murder trial
40:14especially when the people that are accused
40:19are your best and closest friends
40:21mum and dad
40:22it is very very difficult
40:26but when cross-examination happened
40:28I think for me gave me a bit of a fire
40:31because I really wanted to make sure the truth was known
40:35and one of the things I said was
40:37you know what's right is right
40:38and what's wrong is wrong
40:40and that's why we're here
40:44Shaheen's evidence was the turning point in the trial
40:47and the Ahmed's defence quickly crumbled
40:50as the case progressed
40:55the defence were presenting their side of the story
41:01it was very clear to most people there that it was weak
41:04and this case is charging to a conviction
41:08after 25 years of marriage and a united front
41:10throughout this whole case
41:12today was the day Shefilia's mother dramatically turned the tables
41:16on her own husband
41:20Farzana out of the blue
41:22comes up with a defence statement saying
41:24that she's innocent
41:25that she's a victim of domestic abuse
41:27and that Iftika is the sole offender
41:30and he killed Shefilia
41:33I think it was just desperation
41:35I don't think there was any credibility with that account
41:42after a three-month trial and two days of deliberations
41:47in August 2012
41:49nine years after Shefilia went missing
41:51the jury returned with their verdict
41:55memorable day
41:57the jury weren't out that long really for a murder
42:01they came back with a unanimous verdict
42:05both parents were convicted of Shefilia's murder
42:16and they were sentenced to life
42:17with a minimum term of 25 years
42:21for me it was relief
42:23knowing Shefilia finally got justice
42:26and that the world knew the truth
42:28after all these years
42:29finally Shefilia's story was known
42:34and that she could rest in peace
42:42on conviction Iftika's demeanour changed
42:45from arrogance to anger
42:48and you could see that he is a dangerous individual
42:52Farzana's portrayal of a grieving mother
42:58changed to a wailing wreck
43:01but no sympathy for her
43:04because I know what that house was like
43:07and she is certainly no victim
43:09one of the things that I think back on
43:24and really reflect is
43:27how much Shefilia actually changed the world
43:31it makes me really quite proud
43:33that her story was used to impact
43:35in such a positive way
43:36there's no honour in killing
43:39and there's definitely no honour
43:41in the murder of Shefilia
43:43and there's definitely no honour
43:44in the murder of Shefilia
Be the first to comment