Newsnight probe: Met failed to class TC as a ‘high-risk missing person’
POLICE in London failed to class a Turkish Cypriot murder victim as a “high-risk missing person” even though they knew she was at “grave risk of male violence”, a BBC Newsnight investigation has revealed. Mihrican Mustafa, also known as Mary Jane or Jan, was found dead in a freezer along with the body of Henriett Szucs in April 2019.
They had both been killed by violent sex offender Zahid Younis, 36, from east London, who was jailed for life at Southwark Crown Court last September.
The BBC examined whether the two murders were preventable, “uncovering a series of
missed chances to protect the women or locate them after they vanished”.
The report said that the family of Ms Mustafa, 37, told Newsnight “she could have been saved”.
She vanished from east London in 2018 “long after Henriett had been killed in autumn 2016”. The London Metropolitan Police Service said it had treated the case “very seriously”.
The BBC said that according to an internal Scotland Yard report it had seen into the year-long missing person inquiry for Ms Mustafa, who was first reported missing in May 2018:
● Call records show Younis was one of the final people Ms Mustafa was in contact with. Younis, “a known liar and violent sex offender”, told police he barely knew her;
● Mobile data showed her phone was last active in the area where Younis lived;
● A serial number was misread on a mobile phone handed to police, leading to it being disregarded. The phone would have shown contact between Ms Mustafa and Younis;
● Police protocols were breached when a senior investigating officer did not review the case, despite the family’s appeals for it to be prioritised;
● and The Met fixed on the wrong date for her last sighting, based on a claim by an abusive criminal. After seven months, officers checked the real date with her family.
“Officers refused to class [Ms Mustafa] as a high-risk missing person and, just weeks before she was found dead, wrote it was not a ‘working hypothesis’ that she’d been harmed by someone else,” the BBC reported.
“However, Newsnight has established that police knew she was at grave risk of male violence and a local drug support group had anticipated the danger she was in.”
The report added that before going missing Ms Mustafa had been referred to the “care of a local multi-agency panel, which included the Met Police, for high risk victims of domestic violence”.
Four months before she disappeared, a letter from a local drug support agency said Ms Mustafa had “a history of domestic violence” from various partners and was “very vulnerable” to it happening again.
The Met’s internal report exonerated the force, saying Younis was being “appropriately managed” by officers, according to the BBC. It said that separate reviews into both deaths are currently underway, but that the family of Ms Mustafa “was not even informed a review had been launched, first finding out through the Newsnight investigation” and that they believe she would still be alive “if Henriett’s case had been dealt with properly”.