Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Prosecute my father for ALL his crimes
DAUGHTER OF TELFORD BEAST ON LACK OF ACTION
A TELFORD predator who killed teenager Lucy Lowe in a fire WON’T be prosecuted for making her pregnant at just 14.
Cabbie Azhar Ali Mehmood torched the Lowe family home in 2000 after subjecting Lucy to three years of abuse.
Her mum Eileen, 49, and sister Sarah, 17, also perished.
Child groomer Mehmood, 45, was convicted of the triple murder but never charged with sex crimes despite Lucy conceiving his daughter Tasnim two years earlier. Lucy was pregnant again when she died at the age of 16.
The killer is up for parole this month but won’t be forced to sign the sex offenders register if released.
And Tasnim, now 20, has been told by senior officers there will be no fresh probe into his sex offences.
She said: “I think it’s very important that my dad should be prosecuted for all his crimes. Police knew about the sex crimes but didn’t do anything about it.
“He’s only been charged with murder because they wanted to convict him of the most serious crime.
“I asked the police, ‘Now that we know everything we know, is this going to be changing at all?’ And they said no.
SAFETY
“We need to acknowledge the problem and they’re not doing that. He should be on the sex offenders list for the safety of others. I’m living proof.
“It’s difficult to come to terms with the fact abuse is why I exist. I was born out of the fact my dad raped my mum.”
The Sunday Mirror can reveal support worker Tasnim met Supt Paul Moxley, from West Mercia Police, to find out why her dad won’t be charged with abuse.
Supt Moxley said had Lucy died in similar circumstances today, Mehmood would likely be tried for sex crimes.
But in comments likely to provoke fury, he claimed the force was reluctant to launch a fresh probe for fear of being criticised for not bringing the crimes to light earlier.
He said: “If I put myself into the words of a defence barrister, I’d say ‘You knew this 19 years ago. Why didn’t it come to the fore then?’ We could be accused of abuse of process. I think it’s definitely different now, from 20 years ago. We would absolutely be looking and saying, ‘How can your mum have been 14 and pregnant? What’s going on there?’
“If child exploitation or sex offences had occurred, that would all form part of the evidence bundle going to the Crown Prosecution Service.”
Tasnim’s exchange with the officer features in a BBC documentary she has spent the past year making about the circumstances which led to the deaths of her family.
She survived the fire after Mehmood placed her under an apple tree before torching the house.
The only other survivor was her grandad George, 74, who brought her up.
Mehmood was jailed for life with a minimum term of 18 years for the killings and the attempted murder of George – Lucy’s dad.
The Sunday Mirror told last year how up to 1,000 girls could have been abused in Telford over 40
years. We also revealed another girl told the murder inquiry how she was also reportedly raped by Mehmood and claimed he was among a group of men targeting schoolgirls in the town.
But cops took a decade to launch a dedicated child sexual exploitation probe – in which time hundreds more girls were abused and two others died.
Becky Watson, 13, was killed in a car accident described as a “prank” in 2002 after two years of rape and trafficking. Her friend Vicky Round died at 20 in a drug-related incident in 2009 after sex gangs got her hooked on crack cocaine at 12 and heroin at 14.
And today, the full extent of Lucy’s hellish ordeal at the hands of Mehmood and other child groomers can be revealed for the first time. She was first preyed on by the killer when she was 13. And heartbreaking diaries and letters salvaged from the fire reveal he wasn’t the only man who violated her.
Lucy wrote that she and other girls were taken to a secluded local beauty spot, The Wrekin hill, and abused by a group of men.
Tasnim said: “She performed sex acts on older men. It makes you think, who were they? What were they doing? There are parts that make you really upset.”
The diaries, returned to Tasnim by officers just months ago, also show how Mehmood pressured Lucy not to tell authorities about the fact they had sex while she was under age. Tasnim said: “He asked Lucy if she had gone to the police. She said no. If he had to ring her to say, ‘Have you gone to the police about me?’ that clearly indicates the relationship was illegal and it wasn’t right.”
In a heartbreaking letter to Tasnim, written days after she gave birth, Lucy reveals her fears that her daughter will suffer a similar fate to her.
She wrote: “I’ll always be here for you no matter what, just don’t get pregnant at the age of 14.” Tasnim has also read harrowing court transcripts from the murder trial, which showed Lucy lived in fear of Mehmood’s repeated abuse. Just a week before the fire, he forced himself on Lucy at the family home and she screamed for help.
Her dad broke the door down and a neighbour chased Mehmood out. But no one alerted the authorities.
RUNNING
In an emotional exchange, shown in the documentary, Tasnim asks her grandad why he didn’t call the police.
George tells her: “I heard somebody shout, ‘Rape! Rape! Rape!’
“So I went running in, kicked the door down, and next thing you know he was running down the stairs. “I blame myself for not doing more.” Tasnim said: “I just think it’s sad because she was suffering. I think she was ignored and she wasn’t listened to. If people had intervened when they heard about the rape allegation, he could have been in prison. Nobody listened and she was murdered.”
A spokesman for West Mercia Police said: “We understand the concerns raised but we cannot disclose information that would constitute someone’s personal data.
“Tackling child sexual exploitation is and will remain a priority in Telford and we are fully engaged with the Independent Inquiry into child sexual exploitation commissioned this year.”
Why Dad Killed Mum: My Family’s Secret will be available on BBC Three on iPlayer at 10am on November 13 and BBC1 at 10.35pm the same day.