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