40 years for builder who raped and killed niece
Obsessed uncle slit her throat and dumped body in freezer
A BUILDER who raped and murdered his niece before dumping her body in a freezer was branded ‘pure evil’ as he was jailed for at least 40 years yesterday.
Mujahid Arshid, 33, kidnapped Celine Dookhran, 20, and another young woman in July last year.
He raped them both at a £1.5million house he was renovating before killing Miss Dookhran by cutting her throat with a knife. He also slashed the other woman’s throat and wrists but she survived.
Arshid hatched his plot after becoming fixated with his niece and the other woman who cannot be identified for legal reasons. He was found guilty at the Old Bailey of murder and attempted murder, as well as kidnapping and raping both women, and given four sentences. He was also convicted of sexually assaulting the surviving victim when she was 13.
As he was convicted Miss Dookhran’s family shouted: ‘Yes.’ Arshid ranted in the dock, accusing the woman who surviving vived of being the killer and saying: ‘She’s lied to you.’
She wept in the court which had heard a harrowing statement in which she described how she suffers constant flashbacks to the murder she witnessed at the house in Kingston upon Thames, southwest London. ‘Hearing the helpless screams and seeing the fear in Celine’s eyes that day, the terrifying visions and muffling sounds, will never go away,’ she said.
‘ Hearing Celine being killed stops me from closing my eyes and going to sleep like a normal person. The constant flashbacks and nightmares prevent me from moving on. My faith in myself and in the world has been decimated.’
In a victim impact statement Miss Dookhran’s mother Iman Naeem said: ‘She fell victim to pure evil.’
The court had heard that Arshid, previously of Mitcham, south London, had a festering obsession with the surviving victim dating back to when she was a child. When she complained about his sexual abuse, her family had not believed her, jurors heard.
Four years before the murder, Arshid had revealed his rape fantasy involving the same woman in a web chat with an undercover police officer. But when confronted by police he blamed an employee for using his computer.
It left him free to pursue his murderous fantasies.
Jurors at the Old Bailey were told by prosecutor Crispin Aylett QC that Miss Dookhran also got ‘dragged into his warped yearnings’ after she moved into Arshid’s house. The Barclays bank worker had confided in her boyfriend that she found her uncle ‘creepy’ and a ‘pervert’.
In the weeks leading up to the killing Arshid carried out research on the internet and was inspired by acid bath killer John George Haigh who was hanged in 1949 for murdering six people. Arshid bought a freezer for the Kingston upon Thames house to hide the bodies so they would not be found until long after he had fled the country.
He seized his opportunity when Miss Dookhran’s family tried to force her to split from her boyfriend, leaving her distraught. He
‘Unspeakable violence and horror’
bound and gagged the women and bundled them into his pick-up truck the next day, raping them both at the Kingston property before slashing Miss Dookhran’s throat in the bathroom.
The second woman was badly injured but managed to escape by talking Arshid round. She raised the alarm and gave details of the house, leading officers discover the body in the padlocked freezer. Speaking to police from her hospital bed she described hearing screams and thuds as Arshid killed Miss Dookhran while she was tied to a chair downstairs.
She fought for her life when Arshid turned on her, cutting her throat and wrists. She told officers: ‘He said: ‘‘Now you’ve got ten minutes to live and your body will shut down’’. I was trying to play dead. He molested Celine’s body while she was dead and then he molested me thinking I was dead. He’s such a psycho.’
Afterwards Arshid had a furious row on WhatsApp with his wife who demanded to know where her niece was. The killer said he was running away and would be in touch when he reached Pakistan, but his wife told him: ‘You’re dead to me.’ He was picked up at a hotel in Folkestone, still in possession of the padlock to the freezer.
Giving evidence, he claimed the woman killed Miss Dookhran in a fit of jealousy after he had consensual sex with both of them. He claimed she was injured when she attacked him and they struggled over the knife.
Even as he was led from the dock the killer protested his innocence and shouted that it was the other woman who did it, adding: ‘I will prove that lying bitch wrong.’
Trial judge Mr Justice Edis described the murderer as an extremely dangerous man and dismissed as absurd his defence that the surviving woman was responsible for the killing.
Detective Chief Inspector Sam Price, who led the police investigation, said: ‘This was a sexually motivated attack of unspeakable violence and horror.’
Labourer Vincent Tappu, 28, of Acton, west London, denied and was cleared of kidnap, false imprisonment, and possession of a firearm with intent.