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00:03I'm Steve Keogh a former Scotland Yard murder detective inspector I'm going to
00:09take you deep inside murder investigations opening my contacts book for the first time
00:16to reveal the secrets of what it really takes to be a murder detective on the front line
00:23exposing how we solve the most heinous of crimes welcome to secrets of a murder detective
00:43the murder of Sana Ali in May 2007 was one of Manchester's most challenging cases I'm going
00:50to be meeting the senior investigating officer on the case to reveal what really happened the
00:55pressures the setbacks and the methods in the investigation that brought the killer to justice
01:04my name is Jane Antrobus in May 2007 I was a senior investigating officer on the murder of Sana Ali
01:20hi Jane lovely to meet you and you Steve and you okay so a call comes in to GMP and
01:30as a result of
01:31that you respond what was that initial information you got about what happened well it was a Friday
01:36afternoon it was the 11th of May 2007 and the call came in as a 999 call saying my sister
01:48is in the
01:49bedroom and I think she's committed suicide she's killed herself right okay so suicide generally wouldn't
01:58be something that you would respond to so there must be something more than that what was the circumstance
02:03around it that raised it to come to an investigation it was initially treated as a suicide and then
02:09later on that evening there was the forensic post-mortem I think she had 43 stab wounds and
02:15lacerations on her body the pathologist drew some conclusions that some injuries looked like they could be
02:25defense wounds and that some were deliberately staged wounds to make it look like Sana done these injuries to
02:35herself in a self-harming and in a intent to commit suicide so was that seen maintained so whilst the
02:45post-mortem was
02:46happening that house was locked down it was okay that's important isn't it otherwise if you don't
02:53do that family come back in start moving things around and you essentially lose your crime scene
02:57correct and evidence that maybe there can be contaminated
03:07when Sana Ali was found in the house she was found in the bedroom that doesn't mean that the bedroom
03:13is the only crime scene the whole house would be examined and the curtilage of the house so if there's
03:20any vehicles on the drive the back garden the front garden the bins any CCTV that might link anybody to
03:28that scene that would all form part of the crime scene so that despite the fact that someone's just
03:33been found in one room in a in a house like this and the whole house would become that crime
03:39scene
03:42what your initial thoughts and your priorities at that time right well this happened on a Friday
03:48tea time and I only came into the investigation the following Monday morning because it was the on
03:55cover SIO who was dealing with it over the weekend so there were quite a lot of things happened over
04:02the weekend and that's quite normal isn't it so yeah dotted around the country in every single police
04:06force there's gonna be on-call murder teams with an on-call SIO or a number of SIOs but when
04:14you come in
04:14then it's then it's then it's over to you Jane you then take control yes that's correct I got a
04:20full
04:20briefing from the SIO from over the weekend the the victim at Sarna Alley was found in her marital
04:29bedroom at the family home and within the house itself when the police got there it was believed to be
04:39a
04:39totally secure house apart from the front door where the husband of the victims two sisters had
04:47come in responding to phone calls we can't get hold of Sarna can you go and see why she's not
04:53answering
04:54the landline or a mobile phone so they went in and they found her upstairs in the bedroom lying face
05:03down in a pool of blood and there was a kitchen knife at the side of her so they've essentially
05:10got a locked house a victim inside and it appeared to be suicide when a theory or hypothesis is that
05:20a
05:21victim has committed suicide it's really important that the CSI is attending the scene and the Cramsey
05:27manager keeps an open mind and actually looks at the scene impartially so it's almost like you don't
05:33want to have a preconceived idea about oh they've committed suicide you have to look at the scene with an
05:38open mind the victim was a 17 year old married female called Sarna Alley who lived at that house
05:53together with her husband his brother and his parents because she was a quite a quiet person
06:03but she had been at college and she had had a lot of friends who knew her as to just
06:14be a lovely lovely kind
06:16girl she was totally family orientated
06:28so at the postpartum of pathology is going to have a couple of priorities one of them going to be
06:32the main
06:33one really is a cause of death but they'd also look at the circumstances around it are there any injuries
06:39on the body that can indicate what may have gone on at the point of death and one of those
06:43really important ones is going to be
06:45defensive injuries at least three of those injuries were stab injuries deep incisions and one of them a critical one
06:55was to the chest and then there was certainly another one or two to the lower abdomen it wasn't apparent
07:05at the time but later in the investigation
07:07it became very clear that the offender had lifted the victim's top and done those stab wounds to the lower
07:17abdomen which is like a deliberate act because there was no cut in the garment
07:24you're painting a picture there that for me is really quite unusual because if you're if you put yourself in
07:28a position of someone that's attacking someone
07:31why would you lift some garments to stab someone first because the knife's going to go through the garments psychologically
07:37there's something in that isn't there
07:38yes and and it was the fact that sarna was 11 weeks pregnant the offender had made a deliberate act
07:48of stabbing her to kill the baby as well
07:52wow
07:54a fascinating aspect of it for me is the fact that it was directed at her abdomen she was pregnant
08:00we see in domestic abuse cases that abuse will escalate or begin in pregnancy and there was some interesting research
08:11that looked at if the violent was directed
08:14the violence was directed at the abdomen that it was jealousy about the baby
08:23most murders is a link between a killer and suspect and to identify the suspect what you need to do
08:29is build up a
08:29really good picture of the victim's life to see if there's anyone in it or anything in it that could
08:34give an indication as to why they were murdered
08:37sarna was a recently married 17 year old she was part of an arranged marriage and say it was actually
08:47her cousin and that marriage had been arranged for a long time
08:51she was very into him but he was less interested in her in that sort of romantic way let's put
09:01it
09:02murder investigators have various tools and methods they use to solve a crime and one of those a really important
09:08one is a timeline
09:09what was that showing you
09:11it's actually showing that her husband say early had gone off to friday prayers in the afternoon
09:20leaving sana effectively locked in the house his younger brother a teenage boy called hassan
09:29had gone off shopping in bury with his friends so we're looking at who last saw her and the person
09:38who
09:38last saw her was her husband on the surface of it so he's technically alibied out and the teenage
09:46brother his teenage brother is on cctv shopping at various outlets in bury town centre so although they were
09:56interviewed the day after on the saturday they were interviewed to try and build a picture up of the victim
10:05and the circumstances of that friday afternoon so they weren't interviewed as suspects at that point
10:13so you're saying they're alibied out but just imagine if this was the scenario that when the husband left
10:21sana was already dead so no matter what he was doing afterwards he could have been here there and everywhere
10:26in
10:26front of a thousand people but the moment he locked that door behind him she could already have been dead
10:31correct she could have already been dead and also as well when you're talking to me there's a few red
10:38flags
10:39that are going off so first off they're in a relationship that he's not completely happy with
10:46in the uk i'm sure this is the same across the world if a female is a victim of a
10:52murder there's a 50
10:53chance it's going to be at the hands of a partner or ex-partner so these little sparks are going
11:00off in
11:00my brain here thinking well we should really be looking at him now as a potential suspect for her
11:06murder that is what happened and on the sunday he was arrested and interviewed as a suspect
11:14investigators know of the impact murders have on their loved ones and for them to then make a decision to
11:22arrest someone close to the victim isn't a decision that would be taken lightly so in this case when
11:30sana's husband was arrested a huge amount of thought would have gone into that to make sure it was the
11:38right thing to do
11:54when sana's husband was arrested for her murder undoubtedly that fact would have got out into the
12:02wider community and what you often see in these situations is people have an attitude of well
12:08there's no smoke without fire and for those that find themselves in this position and those doubts
12:15and those suspicions will carry on until the real killer is caught
12:25sometimes when you're interviewing someone you get a feel for are they telling you a truth or not because
12:31what someone's saying and what they actually mean can be completely different things but
12:36what was the feeling from you and your colleagues around say and his brother we're building up a picture
12:42that everything wasn't exactly as he was telling us and that it was hiding something and that became
12:49quite apparent on the monday when i took over the investigation
12:57say he was a successful businessman in his own right in the uk and uh he had many many friends
13:05um around the bury and manchester areas a very popular young man with a good personality very outgoing character
13:15but with all the information that's coming to light on the surface of it it's not totally a happy marriage
13:23sana herself had told some of her friends who had said she wasn't happy with him
13:30he stayed out late he came in at four o'clock in the morning and then he'd be on his
13:36phone texting someone
13:38so sana didn't believe that he was completely faithful to her and she told some of her friends that
13:50as a senior investigator one of your important lines of inquiry are going to be
13:54appeals to the public and for that you you will complete a strategy around your media
14:01tell me about that what happened around your media appeals to the public well over the weekend when
14:07it became apparent that it wasn't a suicide and that we were looking for anyone to help with
14:13inquiries to piece together the last hours of sana a press appeal did go out
14:19we got a message into the incident room from a girl a 22 year old girl from birmingham a dental
14:29student
14:30who was um hamahinda singara and she rang at the incident room and said i'm a friend of sair ali
14:37i
14:38believe you've got him in custody and you've took his mobile phone so i think you'll be wanting to speak
14:44to me so now she's almost inserted herself into your inquiry you need to understand who she is what
14:51what were you learning about her well we knew that she was called amahinda singara known as mindy
14:59that she was 22 years of age and we quickly found out that she lived with her parents
15:05in birmingham in solihull in a nice house and that she was a few weeks out of passing a final
15:14dentistry exams as a class a student at birmingham university when you spoke to mindy what did she
15:21say what information did she give you basically she told us um that she was a friend of say that
15:28she'd been in a room romantic liaison with him for almost two years well so what you're basically
15:35telling me now is here is somebody with a love interest with sair things are starting to change
15:44quite drastically now aren't they they were changing minute by minute but as soon as we got all that
15:49information we looked upon mindy in a totally different light
16:03sair's phone revealed crucial information in so much as there are a lot a lot of calls hundreds and
16:11hundreds of calls and texts to the same number and the texts were obviously from
16:19someone he was in a close personal sexual relationship with and this person turned out to be
16:27amahinda singara say his reaction to the messages found was that yes he had been in a relationship
16:35with this girl mindy and uh he tried to call it off in fact he had called it off with
16:43her as soon as he
16:44found out that his wife was expecting a baby mindy wasn't having any of it and wouldn't leave him
16:50alone mindy seems like she was head over heels in love sahir kept her completely secret from his family
16:59it was almost like he was leading two lives he had this long-term girlfriend they went out together
17:05um at one point they they they were planning on going away so it appears that that was a function
17:12of their relationship that they would spend a time away together and yet he would return home he was
17:17living with his family and they had absolutely no knowledge that mindy existed
17:24so it was a completely double life
17:32an affair in a marriage that isn't particularly happy or certainly on his side baby comes along
17:41she then decides that she's going to turn up at the house and try and spoil that sana and the
17:47baby
17:48are killed it kind of starts to fall into place doesn't it it does and there's a lot of other
17:53stuff in
17:53the background that we uncovered as well because of the fact that she was of seek faith sair had already
18:03said me and you cannot be together but the thing about it he never told her he had married sana
18:11he didn't
18:13tell her he told her he was going to pakistan on a pilgrimage and it only came out later that
18:20he'd married
18:20her so you can imagine that she is feeling mindy is the woman scorned
18:28this is a case where because mindy can't have her relationship and this woman comes into his life
18:36and he is marries him and then gets pregnant she didn't know that he was engaged and she didn't know
18:42that he got married and when she found that out that would have been a huge shock she must have
18:49been
18:49absolutely devastated this was a great lead that opened up the investigation away from
18:56say and hassan and gave us that light at the end of the tunnel that we were looking for
19:04some new lead and it certainly was a great one and we followed it with gusto
19:13so talk me through the kind of work that was going on inside the house as i was walking around
19:20the house
19:21um the crime scene and talking to forensic officers it became increasingly unusual that there was no blood
19:33outside the actual bedroom that the killer had been within that bedroom where there was a lot of blood
19:42blood yet there was no blood outside the bedroom down the stairs or in the other rooms or even
19:51on the doors or anything like that so it did appear that whoever had committed this crime was very
19:58forensically aware the offender here tried to clear up the scene and hide evidence but actually you'll never
20:09destroy all the forensic evidence when the crime scene investigators examined the house they ascertained
20:18that there was an insecure window in the kitchen the csis actually found a bare footprint on that surface
20:27close to the window the inference being that that footprint may well be linked to someone trying to
20:32climb out of the window footprints are unique to an individual and in this case they were able to
20:38develop a really good footprint on the worktop on the inside of the window and they were able to
20:43recover some rich detail from that footprint saiyah and hassan's alibis were thoroughly substantiated
20:53and checked out and then they became de-arrested as suspects the main areas of interest are obviously
21:00what's gone on in that bedroom the sequence of events uh prior to sana being murdered who she's met at
21:11the door and a key part of finding out that was not only the forensics to see what we could
21:18prove but
21:20mindy's account of what she actually did that friday afternoon in that address
21:29so you sent your officers down to solihull to speak to mindy what information did they relay back to you
21:36they told me that she had said she's a good friend of saiyah ali and that she in fact had
21:44told them that
21:44she'd been up to saiyah's house in bury where he lived with his wife on that friday afternoon when he
21:53had
21:53been out at friday prayers she'd been up to speak to sana and that immediately raised her to a different
22:03level
22:03so what she's essentially doing is inserting herself into your timeline at a really critical period yes
22:11she's potentially the last person or one of people to see sana alive and what she's got to tell us
22:19about
22:19that conversations in the house what happened in the house is absolutely critical now to our investigation
22:27but you've got a decision to make here is the sio one is you could treat her as a potential
22:32witness
22:33others that you could treat her as a potential suspect if you treat as a suspect it opens up
22:38all kinds of options for you in terms of you can search a house you can take her phone from
22:44her and
22:44search that you can look for her clothing it gives you the chance to potentially get evidence that you
22:50might not get or it'd certainly be harder to get if she's a witness that was exactly my thinking because
22:56i needed to do all those things to get as they would say my ducks in a row my evidence
23:05all together
23:06and to get a full picture of what went on on that friday afternoon so she was raised to suspect
23:15level a policy decision was made and she was arrested when crime scene investigators are at the scene
23:23of a murder it's important that they carry out an extensive look for fingerprints dna etc and that
23:31was highlighted in this case here there was a footmark found on the kitchen worktop which on its own
23:38may not have been strong evidence but it was found in a position that was hard to explain away
23:56over the last 10 years 92 percent of people convicted of homicide meaning murder or manslaughter were men
24:06and in that same period only two percent of murders involved a female victim with a female killer
24:15females killing females is rare in fact murder is a crime that's predominantly committed by men
24:26during my 30-year career i had a variety of roles i worked my way up and i was the
24:33first ever female
24:34detective chief superintendent in the history of greater manchester police
24:40it's about developing laterally and learning a variety of skills when you're supervising a team and
24:47you're directing a team you've got to take that team on the journey with you and you've got to earn
24:54respect throughout my career i must have been involved in well over 100 murder investigations and suspicious
25:01death investigations each case is very different but it does affect you when you find out that personal
25:10story and especially when it's young people that have lost their lives unnecessarily
25:22in any murder investigation you're looking for a motive and now because of what mindy has
25:30actually said and the circumstances that she's in a relationship with sana's husband and has found out recently that he's
25:40expecting a child and that their relationship has took a dramatic turn
25:46and that he's stopping that relationship because he wants to build a future with his wife and child
25:52that gives mindy the perfect motive
25:57when you arrest someone for a serious crime like murder it opens up some
26:02police powers one of those is to search the premises in which they're arrested
26:08i'm assuming that is what happened next the family home was searched predominantly
26:13her bedroom a number of items of clothing and footwear were seized together with her mobile phone
26:21and there were items in the wardrobe of her home there was the quran because it was understood that she
26:30was
26:30intending to change to the um islamic faith so that she could be together properly with say
26:38there was a box of candles which would been burnt down and those became relevant when we watched a bollywood
26:48film that was also discovered in the wardrobe which was all about this person with unrequited love
26:55and if you leave a candle burning in the window of your house for x amount of days your love
27:01will come
27:01back to you and uh there was also a book which was very interesting called everything you want to know
27:09about dna wow because earlier on you're telling me that whoever committed this murder seemed to be
27:15forensically aware now you also said that she was a dental student would a dental student need a book
27:24about dna potentially a dental student wouldn't need a book on dna and it was another red flag for us
27:32being arrested for murder and which means she will need to be interviewed again under caution by some of
27:39your officers what happened in the interview did she actually speak to you uh yes she did speak it was
27:45not one of those no comment interviews she gave a full and frank account of her movements on that friday
27:54afternoon and the reason that she'd been up to throstle grove she was devastated when she found out that
28:00sarna was pregnant just as she was devastated when she found out that saia was actually married and
28:08in the interim she she had wanted to keep her relationship going with him and he had said no
28:14that couldn't happen and that the two of them had been to a religious leader and that they'd put something
28:21in place called a mutter which is something under his faith which means he can take a second wife for
28:29a temporary period what did mindy say about that friday afternoon she told the tale of um going up there
28:38she spoke to a friend on the way who confirmed that she had spoke to uh mindy and mindy had
28:45told her
28:45she was going to confront sarna and then she parked a car not outside the house um which she parked
28:54it
28:54on the other side of the main road about 300 yards away and when confronted about why she'd done that
29:00she said oh well that's where i used to park all the times that me and saya were seeing each
29:05other
29:08mindy's version of events is that she went to the front door to confront
29:14sana and that she was instructed to go around to the back door where sana admitted her to the house
29:21because she only had a back door key when mindy said i'm a friend of saia's sana allegedly said to
29:29her
29:29oh you must be miriam well miriam was a former girlfriend of saia's so she then didn't confront
29:38you know sana apparently but she went along with the fact that she was miriam which makes no sense
29:46whatsoever of her visit to throstle grove that friday afternoon they were having a conversation
29:54her and sana and then sana told her that she was pregnant a couple of months pregnant and that she
30:02wanted to close the window and she couldn't reach it so mindy said oh i'll close it for you and
30:09she
30:09couldn't reach it so she had to take her shoes off and go on the worktop so that gave her
30:17a version of
30:18events she then said they went upstairs to the main bedroom because sana wanted to show mindy wedding
30:26photographs obviously she thought she was miriam at the time and they sat on the bed looking at
30:32wedding photographs and then she said that sana got a bit distressed and she decided to leave but
30:41when she left she was fine bizarre isn't it i mean it just doesn't make any sense to me at
30:49all she went
30:49up to confront her but she didn't actually confront her no and she's just let her into her house yeah
30:56complete stranger decided to show her her wedding photos thinking it was an ex i mean this doesn't
31:04make sense it doesn't make sense we know that before going to sana's house she bought a knife
31:13you don't take a knife to talks she took chocolates that suggests that she was there to deceive her
31:21to present her with chocolates what we think happened is she bought those chocolates and you
31:26do get her going in the service station on the m6 on the way up what sold those chocolates as
31:33a
31:35blagging her way in to the house with a gift oh i'm miriam and i've come i brought you these
31:41chocolates
31:42and i've heard you got married so it all was a bizarre tale that she told
31:49although as bizarre as this account seems it's actually quite a good thing for you because it's
31:55committing her to a story that's unbelievable essentially that knife was not from that house
32:03it was brought into the crime scene and it was sold in a shop close to where mindy lived so
32:12she had the
32:13means in that she had access to the knife that was the murder weapon
32:22when we look at motive there's a really strong motive when we look at her she was in a relationship
32:27with saiyah that was in her eyes going wrong and then we look at opportunity she was at the house
32:35in that period between when saiyah left and when son's body was found she had access to sana she was
32:44there in her bedroom with her she had the opportunity to commit the murder so everything coming together
32:50this is building a really strong case against her isn't it yeah it really is and uh especially
32:58about the knife yeah the knife wasn't stopped at a great many shots of outlets in the uk but certainly
33:07was at one in solihull where we had a going into that high street a couple of days before the
33:13murder
33:14when you took this footprint from mindy and compared it to the footmark that was on the side in the
33:19kitchen were they a match it wasn't a full footprint that was on the work surface but the relevant parts
33:26that were there could be matched with the sample that we took from mindy another element of her planning
33:34and meticulation is that when police presented her with what evidence there was for example the footmark
33:43on the kitchen bench she had an answer for this she had an answer for how she was in the
33:49bedroom she
33:50had an answer for how she moved sana around the house she had planned and prepared for every point
33:59that the police could address with her she had an answer for everything what about her movements after
34:06the murder were you able to establish anything then we could establish that she went uh home via the m6
34:15but
34:15she didn't go directly home the car went onto the cctv cameras at the birmingham dental hospital where she
34:24was studying and as it goes out of view round the back where the car is seen to drive and
34:31goes out of
34:31view is where the incinerators are and within five minutes the car comes back round and drives off and
34:40continues on the journey home what are your feelings on what she was doing there at the hospital what do
34:45you think i think that so she was very aware of dna and i think that mindy potentially goes to
34:52the
34:52toilet and puts on a forensic suit where she comes back and she does the murder and then she removes
35:00the suit bags it all up and leaves that bedroom in her normal clothes and that then she goes out
35:09through that window putting the footprint on the work surface in the kitchen i think she then goes and
35:17disposes of those items at the incinerators at the dental hospital something that she's very familiar with
35:25that makes complete sense doesn't it so she you've got the clothing that you know she went to that
35:30house in there is no blood no none of santa's dna on it no there's no blood distribution outside of
35:39the house the obvious thing if she's a student at a hospital is that she would have access to
35:45paper suits assault the forensic officers yeah and the gloves and the gloves and everything and everything
35:51the fact that she behaves in this way with no criminal experience this isn't something she's done
35:58before on practice this is someone who's never committed any crime nothing no petty crime nothing it's
36:08unbelievable that she was able to behave in the way she did without that criminal experience we never see
36:19this one of the things that troubles me the most about sana's murder is the overkill why commit such a
36:27vicious attack an attack not only on sana herself but also their unborn baby
36:35the fact that sana ali was pregnant at the time of the attack is is kind of quite an emotive
36:40uh thought the fact that whoever's killed sana ali has also killed an unborn baby and the fact that sana
36:50ali
36:50had been stabbed in the stomach also tends to suggest that this is a targeted attack because she was pregnant
36:58when jane was building this case she didn't have that smoking gun she had the footmark on the kitchen
37:06inside on its own it probably doesn't mean a lot the chocolates taken by a person who's going to tell
37:14someone of their husband's infidelity the parking of the car some distance away from the house something
37:22that sangira tried to explain away the buying of a knife on its own not illegal and not an indication
37:30of
37:30guilt the book on dna she was a student so potentially again could have explained that away
37:38each of these pieces of evidence on their own would never have proven the case of murder
37:44but when they were brought together i think they painted a compelling picture of sangira's guilt in sana's
38:03murder
38:05the case against harminda sangira was built on circumstantial evidence meaning there was no
38:12direct evidence linking her to sana's murder so when the trial started the investigators couldn't have
38:19been sure of the outcome an added element to this was that sangira herself would present as
38:27a hard-working student from a good background no criminal history the type of persona that could
38:35potentially gain sympathy from the jury
38:43no one had a bad word to say about her she was a vibrant personality she was a popular girl
38:49with lots of friends and a very active social life mindy gave out the image of a completely
38:57functioning valuable member of society she historically was a straight-a student
39:04she came from a good family a good loving family she was studying to be a dentist you know this
39:11is a
39:12girl that had her the world in front of her she was she had everything she was an attractive woman
39:20a clever woman and for all intents and purposes looked like a happy functioning member of society
39:27before you can formally charge anyone with murder the evidence has to go before the crime prosecution
39:32service who have to make a decision of whether there's enough to charge that person in this case
39:38we had evidence of witness testimony we had forensic evidence of the footprint the chocolates we had
39:46her own admission that she'd been in the house and the timings of everything which were down to the
39:52phone messages the phone calls and the cell site analysis and the ampr movements of her car from
40:00birmingham to bury which showed that she'd been up there at that afternoon and she'd left a short time
40:07before sana's mutilated body was found in that bedroom you've persuaded the cps that mindy has
40:16committed this murder but ultimately you need to go to court and persuade a jury and that's a very high
40:21bar for them to be sure that she did carry out that crime exactly it's all about case building now
40:28and
40:28building the file of evidence and getting everything together ready for that trial at crown court because
40:34you've got the 12 good men and women of the jury who have to be convinced beyond reasonable doubt that
40:41that person mindy killed sana alley in her own home
40:49the trial started at manchester crown court in november 2007 and families were present from both sana's
40:59family and mindy's family within the um courtroom itself i was present try and keep a back seat really
41:09just watching proceedings and we have the family liaison officer looking after the victim's family
41:17how were you feeling on that first day of the trial having done all that hard work and
41:22this is really the point where you're all aiming towards obviously feeling nervous apprehensive and
41:28wanting to get a result for sana's family when it's put in front of a jury you can never be
41:36100
41:36confident of what the outcome is going to be can you you can't be 100 confident and mindy actually took
41:44the stand and gave evidence the fact that she had an answer for everything and the fact that her story
41:51remained consistent throughout questioning that's how good her planning was and that's how consistent
41:58her account was which is actually very unusual often that's what trips people up their account is not
42:06consistent hers was absolutely consistent in detail this was rehearsed and rehearsed again and again
42:17so how did the trial go she was trying to detract everything from her and push it all over to
42:25say here and we need to be looking at him rather than blaming her for what supposedly happened yes she
42:33did go to the house and she admitted that but she certainly did not murder sana you're trying to prove
42:40a case against mindy but her defense is it wasn't me it was him so essentially you also have to
42:46try and
42:46prove his innocence don't you yeah we had to alibi him totally out of it but she's still detracting from
42:53herself at trial there was no great emotional outburst in the witness box just as there hadn't
43:00been in all her interviews she maintained a very calm persona and there's no doubt whatsoever that the
43:08jury looked at this slim attractive young lady who was there accused of this murder and they must have
43:19thought she couldn't be capable of it when a trial is conducted in front of a jury that jury is
43:2712 members
43:28of the public who potentially have no understanding of forensic evidence and no knowledge of dna evidence
43:35so it's really important to make it clear and concise and appropriate for the jury to be able to understand
43:42so you're sat there in court and you reach that point where eventually there is a verdict and you'll
43:49come back into court you'll be there with silo's family you'll be there with members of your team
43:54and the jury walked back in and then asked their verdict what did they come back with guilty
44:01on the 29th of november 2007 mindy was found guilty of murder and was sentenced to life with a minimum
44:12tariff of 14 years
44:17how did you feel at that point we felt uh very pleased that the guilty verdict had been recorded and
44:26we felt slightly aggrieved that the sentence was so light i think saya was very horrified and disappointed
44:36that mindy could actually commit such an offense like that and i'm sure that in his heart of hearts
44:46he did feel some guilt due to infidelity carrying on an affair with her for so long
44:52when sana was murdered her unborn child died but the law in this country means that you cannot commit
45:01murder against an unborn child for murder to be an offense the victim has to have been born and taken
45:10a
45:10breath morally and ethically it's two lives in the eyes of the law it's one life and it's all very
45:19very
45:19sad and a very tragic case how old was mindy at the time when she was sentenced 23. so all
45:27being well
45:28for her she'd be out and about to have her life at 37 young enough to marry start a family
45:35and have
45:35her own baby yeah that doesn't feel like justice for me no it doesn't to me because she's taken a
45:42life
45:43effectively two lives and you know sana's mother and family i've had robbed from them taken cruelly away
45:58so although it was a guilty verdict it doesn't feel like true justice
46:08when speaking to jane what came across was her clear frustration at the sentence in this case 14 years
46:16for a premeditated murder of a 17 year old child and her unborn baby didn't feel like justice so i
46:25completely and utterly share her frustrations
46:28so
46:55so
46:56so
46:57so
46:57so
46:57so
46:58so
46:58so
46:58so
46:58so
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