“I told you I was coming for you.”
Basit Hussain, aged 25, of no fixed address, was jailed for 13 and a half years after he ambushed a woman outside her home and stabbed her repeatedly after an argument on Instagram.
Leeds Crown Court heard he attacked his victim in Fagley, Bradford, shortly after midnight on September 19, 2019.
Chloe Hudson, prosecuting, said Hussain was on licence at the time of the stabbing after serving a six-year jail sentence for possession with intent to supply Class A drugs.
Whilst in prison, he randomly selected the woman on Instagram and began sending her messages on an illicit phone.
Hussain said: “Yo, yo, I am in prison… text me I am local to where you are.”
The woman did not reply but four days before the attack, she and a female friend argued with Hussain on Instagram.
She was waiting for a friend outside her home when Hussain got out of a silver car.
He approached her and said: “I told you I was coming for you.”
Hussain then repeatedly stabbed her and was driven off in the car.
The injured woman ran to her friend’s car and was taken to Bradford Royal Infirmary.
She suffered stab wounds to the left side of her neck, twice in the arm and once in the back. She was left with permanent scarring.
Hussain was arrested in Salt Street, Bradford, where he had been staying.
In her victim impact statement, the woman said that she was “the most scared she had ever been” when she was stabbed.
She said: “I was praying that I would not die.”
The attack has left her with low confidence and feeling paranoid and unsafe. She was afraid that Hussain would come after her again.
She added:
“I would ask the court to lock him up for as long as possible to protect myself and others.”
Hussain was charged with attempted murder but the Crown later accepted his guilty pleas to wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and possession of a bladed article as an offensive weapon.
In mitigation, Zaheer Afzal said that Hussain had suffered a troubled childhood and had mental health problems since he was a teenager.
He complained of hearing voices in his head and thought that people on television were talking about him.
Hussain had no previous convictions for violence and was grateful his victim did not sustain long-term injury.
Mr Afzal said that Hussain told the police: “If I had wanted to kill someone, I would have done.”
He went to the victim’s house to photograph it “saw red and stabbed her”.
Judge Tom Bayliss QC said it was “a premeditated revenge attack” which left the victim permanently scarred and frightened that she would be attacked again.
Hussain received a sentence of 17 years, with 13 and a half years in prison and three and a half on licence. Hussain will serve two-thirds of the jail term before he is considered for parole.
The Telegraph and Argus reported that Judge Bayliss also made a restraining order to protect the woman from Hussain in the future.
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