MUM’S FURY AT ‘SEVEN YEARS OF HELL’ AS CHARGES DROPPED
Affray case linked to family feud incident
A MUM has criticised the police and Crown Prosecution Service – after she was ‘wrongly accused’ and hauled before the courts.
Teaching assistant Aliyah Khan was charged with affray after ‘protecting’ her son from ‘attackers’ in an incident linked to a seven-year family feud.
But the case was dropped when the 38-year-old appeared at Stoke-ontrent Crown Court. It followed an incident in Wellesley Street, Shelton, which also saw two relatives linked to the feud walk free from court after their cases were dropped too.
Now Aliyah, and her 17-year-old son Javaze Akhtar, have spoken of their seven years of ‘hell’ linked to the feud.
Mum-of-four Aliyah, from Hanley, said: “The police decided I would be charged with affray for sticking up for my son in the street. I was only there because I was protecting him – I didn’t commit any crime.
“When I got to court, they said everybody had looked at the footage and decided I had never committed an affray and was wrongfully accused. I should never have been charged in the first place. I walked out a free woman.” But Aliyah is furious the case against the two other defendants has been dropped.
She says her son has been targeted since the age of 11 amid fears he would be stabbed. It got so bad he was pulled out of mainstream school for his own safety.
Aliyah added: “It has had a massive impact on Javaze’s life. He has been home-schooled through this, and at one point he didn’t have enough confidence to go out of the house.
“He had alopecia for a year because of this and he doesn’t go out anywhere. He has only just gone back to college because they can’t keep his space because he’s had massive amounts of time off due to the stress.
“The police just refuse to do anything. How can it get chucked out of crown court?
“We feel let down by the CPS and police. Hopefully the attacks and violence will stop.”
Aliyah says she is nursing a broken arm after she was attacked by two other family members wielding baseball bats in Trent Vale. She says no arrests have been made and she had to make a statement five days after the attack after police did not attend A&E.
Javaze is now attempting to persuade the police and CPS to reinvestigate the Wellesley Street incident following the CPS ruling.
He said: “The crown court has let the case go and no one knows why. I feel like I’ve been let down by the police and CPS. For some reason the police and CPS don’t want to do anything.
“I am trying to get a review of the case because I want it to go back to court. I want the police and CPS to look at it again.”
A CPS spokesperson said: “All decisions on whether to prosecute a case are made in accordance with The Code for Crown Prosecutors. When we initially reviewed the case, we determined there was a realistic prospect of conviction and that it was in the public interest to proceed. However we keep all prosecutions under continuous review, and after further review, we determined that there was no longer a realistic prospect of conviction and we therefore made the decision to discontinue the case against the defendants. The victim can seek a review of this decision under the Victim’s Right to Review Scheme.”
The Sentinel has contacted Staffordshire Police for a statement regarding the family’s complaints.