Builder ‘kidnapped, raped and cut throats of two women’
AN OBSESSED builder kidnapped, raped and cut the throats of two young women, leaving one of them in a freezer at a disused house.
Mujahid Arshid, 33, had spent weeks plotting how to abduct the two women, kill them and dump their bodies in a deep freeze, the Old Bailey heard.
Jurors were told Mr Arshid had become “sexually fixated” with the women and resolved “if he cannot have them, no one could”.
At the time, both women had boyfriends and Celine Dookhran, his niece, had moved into Mr Arshid’s home after falling out with her parents over her love life. He had allegedly abused the other woman, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, when she was aged 13 and was “beside himself with rage” that she was going out with someone else, the court heard.
Mr Arshid recruited Vincent Tappu, a labourer, to help abduct the pair and take them to a house he was renovating. While there, Mr Arshid raped both women and attacked them with a knife, jurors were told. One of the women managed to escape death and raise the alarm by persuading him they could be together, the court heard.
Officers discovered the body of Celine Dookhran, 20, in a locked freezer in a utility room in the house in Wimbledon, south west London.
Crispin Aylett QC, prosecuting, told jurors: “For a period of about three weeks before July 19 last year, the first defendant was planning to kidnap both young women. Thereafter, and it is as bizarre as it is terrible, he intended to rape them both before murdering them and disposing of their bodies.”
On the evening of Tuesday July 18, Ms Dookhran, who worked at Barclays Bank in Mitcham, south London, was put under pressure to split up with her boyfriend and Mr Arshid put his plan into action, the court heard. Wearing balaclavas and gloves, the defendants stuffed socks into the women’s mouths and bound their hands and feet before Mr Arshid drove to the Wimbledon house with them in the boot.
Two days before, Mr Arshid had installed a chest-high deep freezer in the utility room. He allegedly raped each woman in turn. Mr Aylett said: “The defendant took Celine back upstairs. He cut her throat in the bathroom, most likely with the lock knife.”
Later, he took the other woman upstairs and cut her throat, the court heard. But in a desperate bid for survival she managed to dupe Mr Arshid into believing they could be together.
Mr Arshid, of no fixed address, denies murder, attempted murder, the rape of both women and the earlier sexual assault of the surviving woman.
He is jointly charged with Mr Tappu, 28, of Acton, west London, of both women’s kidnap and false imprisonment, and possession of a firearm with intent.
The trial continues.