VICTIM ROBBED AFTER DEATH
a year or so. I had a lot of trouble with him. He would be banging around in the house and making lots of noise in the middle of the night. We now know he was banging on the walls with a hammer.
“James was always helping him out on odd jobs. He was a canny lad. He never spoke much. James would do anything for anybody, just a lovely chap.
“Everyone on this street wants Zed to get life in prison for what he has done. He was like a poison on this estate.”
Betty Ford, 86, has lived in her home on St Stephen’s Way for 46 years.
Mrs Ford revealed how manipulative Zaman changed church-going Rayworth from a ‘lovely girl’ who loved talking to her neighbours into a recluse who avoided her former friends.
She said: “He was a horrible man. The things that went on in that house are disgusting.
“Kay was a lovely girl, born and raised here and she used to go to church. But he changed her. And he ruined what was a close-knit community. There was nobody like him.
“But Jimmy, Jimmy was a lovely lad. He never spoke, he just used to nod his head.
“I’d be sitting in my living room having a cup of tea and would see him walking to and fro.
“When I found out what happened, it broke my heart. I am glad Zaman is off this estate.
“Prison is too good for him. Is he evil? I don’t think there’s a word strong enough to describe him.” RINGLEADER Zahid Zahman and his accomplices plundered Jimmy Prout’s bank account – days before his corpse was discovered.
The vulnerable 45-year-old’s decomposing body was dumped on wasteland near their home in Percy Main, North Shields.
The callous four raided Jimmy’s bank account on several occasions before he was discovered on March 27, 2016 – nearly six weeks after his death.
CCTV footage captured two trips to ATMs in Royal Quays Shopping Centre on March 3 and, a week later, stealing a total of £350 from the dead dad-of-two’s account.
And on March 24 – just three days before Jimmy was finally found and a murder investigation was launched – all four were pictured on Wallsend’s High Street West.
Former girlfriend Anne Corbett fails to shield her face with a hood as she shamelessly pillaged her ex’s account.
Minutes later, evil mastermind Zahid Zahman, Kay Rayworth and Myra Wood pass behind their accomplice.
The footage closes with wheelchair-bound Zahman checking on Corbett’s progress, and the Anne Corbett and Zahid Zahman accessing an ATM in Wallsend using Jimmy Prout’s bank card pair leave the area together. In his opening speech at Newcastle Crown Court, prosecutor Paul Greaney QC told jurors: “Following Jimmy’s death, the defendants took his body to nearby wasteland and dumped it.
“In the six weeks that followed, they took steps to cover up what they had done, asking anyone who would listen where Jimmy was and thereby pretending that they were looking for him, when they knew full well he was dead.
“They also fleeced Jimmy, even in death, taking money from his bank account.”
After outlining the details of the murder, he added: “It is important that we should acknowledge that even what we have said so far may have shocked you, even outraged you.
“After all, how Jimmy Prout was treated belongs in the Dark Ages, not the 21st century.”
Two of the accused – Ann Corbett and Zahid Zaman – have been found guilty of murder.
The other two – Kay Rayworth and Myra Wood – were found not guilty of either murder or manslaughter, but were found guilty of causing or allowing the death of a vulnerable adult.