Man put pillow on wife’s face to muffle screams
ADMITS THAT HE HIT HER THREE TIMES WITH PLANK
A MAN accused of driving to Middlesbrough and letting himself into his estranged wife’s home in the middle of the night to try to kill her, has admitted he hit her repeatedly to the head with a piece of wood.
Altaf Mahmood, 60, said his wife wouldn’t stop screaming and he was worried the neighbours would hear, when he appeared in bedroom, dressed head to toe in black, on the night of June 27, 2021.
Mahmood, who suffers from Parkinson’s and diabetes, says he put a pillow over his wife’s face to stop her screaming and repeatedly told her, “It’s Altaf. It’s Altaf.”
Yasmin Shahid maintains she initially had no idea who the man in her bedroom was, and that he had a face mask that she managed to rip off, revealing it was her husband.
When Yasmin Shahid went quiet, Mahmood says he lifted the pillow off her. But she started screaming again so he put his hand over her mouth but says she then bit him and wouldn’t stop: “I put my hand on her mouth and my thumb and this finger went in her mouth and I said, ‘keep quiet.’ She bit me and then I started crying.
“I hit her. It was not very powerful. She didn’t leave. I grabbed her and I pulled her towards the door.
“There was a piece of wood near the door. I warned her, leave me or I will hit you. She didn’t leave so I hit her. She didn’t leave. I hit her three times.
“I was explaining, you know that I’m Altaf, why did you make this. You got hit. You got an injury and now you’ve gone quiet.
“You should have been quiet before. Now it’s painful for you.”
Yesterday, Teesside Crown Court heard that Yasmin Shahid, one of Mahmood’s two wives, was left with a bleeding wound to her forehead, and that part of her skull was exposed by her injuries. She had a fracture to the left part of her skull.
The prosecution say Mahmood borrowed his student son’s Jaguar and drove to Stockton on June 17 of last year. They say he waited until late and caught a taxi to Middlesbrough, where he let himself into Mrs Shahid’s rented home on Maria Street in North Ormesby.
He is accused of trying to kill his wife because he was angry that she had left him alone when he was in poor health.
But Mahmood – who found out where his wife was living after a benefits letter was sent to him, asking about her Universal Credit claim – claims that he frequently visited his wife and she left him stay over.
He admits he installed a covert camera in her bedroom that was
pointed at her bed: “I put a camera in her bedroom. She became angry.
“I said – ‘you are my wife. I put the camera there for your security.’ The duration of the battery was six hours. It shut down before six hours.”
Under questioning from police, who arrested the retired shop keeper at his home in Coventry the next day and brought him to Middlesbrough, Mahmood said: “She said she was interested in an iPad. I gave her £350 to buy it and said you be happy.
“Whatever things she needed, we bring them. Her life was going very well.”
The trial continues.