Man who Killed Partner was ‘Obvious Risk to Women’

An inquest heard that a man who beat his partner to death had set another woman on fire.

Sobhia Khan was killed by Atual Mustafa at his house in Derby in March 2017, a month after she left her family home in Bradford.

Mustafa received a life imprisonment, serving a minimum of 32 years.

An inquest heard that she was left with 36 individual injuries, including being burned with an iron and struck by a bar or pole.

Her death came almost two years after Mustafa was discharged with conditions from a secure psychiatric unit in Derby.

He had been serving a hospital order for a sustained attack which saw him shave, beat, burn and set fire to another woman.

At Chesterfield Coroner’s Court, the victim’s brother Javid Khan said his family were “duped” by Mustafa, who was known to them by the false name of Asif from when he was first introduced in 2016.

He said: “I have a lot of concerns and it has taken five years to get here.

“I want justice for my sister because if that happened to me, she would be sitting here saying the same thing.

“There are a lot of concerns and everything clicked into place after she died.

“I do beat myself up. I should have intervened as a brother.”

The inquest will look at the rationale behind the decision to discharge Mustafa from Derby’s Cygnet Hospital in July 2016, six years after he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia following the first attack.

It will also examine whether the conditions attached to Mustafa’s discharge were fit for purpose and how his risk was assessed.

Leading junior counsel David Pojur said that conditions of his discharge included complying with appointments and medication, and notifying authorities if he started a new relationship.

Mr Pojur said that despite the “forceful and dominant” Mustafa posing “an obvious risk to women”, the conditions attached to his release into the community were not effectively monitored.

He added: “Whilst there were many checks on his conditions, they mostly depended upon his self-reporting about how he was feeling, how he viewed his mental health, how he was taking his medication and whether or not he said he was in a relationship.

“Much was taken at face value.

“Even when questions were asked in the presence of family members, he lied about being in a relationship.”

In early 2016, Sobhia told a friend that she had met Mustafa via Instagram but had kept it from her family.

The friend, referred to as Miss X, told the court that she raised concerns about his criminal past but despite that Sobhia was “desperate to settle down”.

Miss X noticed bruises and burn marks after Sobhia began visiting her partner’s Derby home, which the victim put down to being “clumsy”.

Javid said that after Mustafa was eventually introduced, similar concerns were again dismissed, with Sobhia saying her partner had been sentenced for drug offences which he did not commit and that he was a “good lad”.

Mr Pojur said the move to Derby was “the decline towards her death”, and in a four-week period, the westernised Sobhia became “alone and increasingly vulnerable” and eventually “became a possession”.

She began wearing a full niqab and burqa, her social media accounts disappeared, her iPhone was replaced with a basic Nokia device, and she was banned from making eye contact with men or touching them by accident.

Sobhia’s family discovered Mustafa’s real identity only after the murder. They then found articles about his previous offending online.

Javid said that if his family had known about Mustafa’s past, his sister “would not have been going anywhere and would have still been here”.

The inquest will also look at Mustafa’s “secret sexual relationship” with a staff member at Cygnet Hospital.

Allegedly, the inquest was inadequately assessed and the “manipulative” Mustafa presented himself as a victim, despite evidence of controlling behaviour.

Mr Pojur said:

“In echoes of his behaviour toward other women, he told her that he had bugged her car and knew where she was at all times.”

“He also told her that he had bugged her house and had seen her having sexual intercourse with her husband.

“She admitted to providing a contraband mobile phone to him and having sex with him.

“She was swiftly dismissed.

“Mustafa, on the other hand, appears to have been treated as the wronged party, with no recognition that his behaviour towards the healthcare worker could be seen as offence-paralleling.”

The inquest continues.