Evil mother who starved Khyra to death is freed after just 7 years Case prompted major review of social services
AN evil mother who starved her seven-year-old daughter to death has been freed after serving just seven years in jail.
Angela Gordon, 42, and stepfather Junaid Abuhamza admitted killing little Khyra Ishaq in 2008 in a crime that shocked the nation.
Khyra weighed just 2st 9lb and had 60 external injuries when she died in May 2008.
Her mother had sat downstairs eating a takeaway with her partner as Khyra lay dying with pneumonia and meningitis for two days.
Police later found that cupboards in the house in Leyton Road, Handsworth, were stocked full of food but were padlocked or kept out of reach.
As well as being starved, Khyra was subjected to a harrowing punishment regime, involving beatings with a cane.
The pair admitted manslaughter at Birmingham Crown Court in March 2010. Abuhamza was given an indefinite sentence and Gordon was sentenced to 15 years.
In 2008, in the wake of both the Khyra Ishaq case and other deaths of children under the council’s care, the city’s children’s services was rated as inadequate by Ofsted.
After nine years of shake-ups and changes in management it has stubbornly failed to shake-off the rating.
However, its latest inspection con- cluded that there have been signs of progress.
Now Khyra’s father Ishaq Abuzaire has told how he discovered Gordon has been released from prison via a letter from the NSPCC charity.
She has served half her 15-year sentence imposed in 2010.
Ishaq has described the early release as “ridiculous” and claims the pair should have been convicted of murder. He added: “Angela has only served half her sentence but I’m still suffering.
“They should have been convicted of murder. She was smart and caring for her children until she met Abuhamza. She would not let strangers in the property.
“She was manipulated and she made mistakes. He took advantage of the situation after we split in 2006.
“Everyone knew what he was like, but no one thought she would allow it to happen.”
Fellow prisoners, sickened by the crimes, attacked Gordon on three occasions in Eastwood Prison, Gloucestershire. And in a sick twist she then bloated to 18 stone while serving her sentence.
A Serious Case Review, published by Birmingham’s Safeguarding Children’s Board, found that Khyra had been let down by social workers, health staff, teachers and police.
Before Khyra’s death Gordon withdrew Khyra from a school breakfast club in January 2007. She even wrote to the school in March 2007, asking staff to not give her second helpings.
Summing up at Birmingham Crown Court, the honourable Mrs Justice Eleanor King had told the couple: “Khyra was desperately ill from when she had been beaten and made to stand for at least an hour in front of a cold fan.
“She died without medical treatment, without love, without comfort.”
Angela has only served half her sentence but I’m still suffering. Khyra Ishaq’s father Ishaq Abuzaire