DEATH CRASH CAR TOOK OFF, HIT TREE AND SPLIT IN TWO, MURDER TRIAL TOLD
Detective tells court engine ‘detached’ after collision
A MURDER trial jury heard two men died when their ‘airborne’ car hit a tree and split in two as it was allegedly being chased by two other vehicles – one of which included a mother and daughter from Stoke-on-trent.
The Skoda Fabia ‘flew’ headon into the tree as it travelled at ‘about 89mph’ along the A46 in Leicestershire.
The jury heard an Audi TT – which was on loan to Mahek Bukhari of Tunstall – reached speeds of 100mph during the alleged chase.
Christopher Coe, a Leicestershire Police detective sergeant, investigated the scene of the crash in February this year.
He told the jury the Skoda had swerved off the road to the right and hit the central reservation barrier before returning to the road, just ahead of the crash.
Further along the road the Skoda appeared to have left the road and hit the barrier again. DS Coe said: “The barrier had sheared away from uprights and forced them downwards.”
He said at the main crash site where the wreckage was, the Skoda had collided with a ‘single mature tree’ and the marks start about two feet up the trunk, ‘indicating the vehicle was airborne’ at the point the Skoda hit it.
The jury was told the right side of the car was to the right of the tree, near the southbound side, while the rest of the car had split off and was next to the northbound side – which the car had been on before the collision.
DS Coe said the engine had detached from the Skoda as it split into two.
The jury was played the final moments of a 999 call at 1.32am, in which 21-yearold Saqib Hussain – who was in the car with Mohammed Hashim Ijazuddin, also 21 – can be heard shouting: “Oh my god! No!” before a low, crunching sound is heard and the call ends.
Prosecutor Collingwood Thompson asked DS Coe: “You can actually hear the sound of an impact?” DS Coe replied: “Yes.”
The prosecution case is that Saqib had been threatening to release explicit pictures of Ansreen Bukhari from their three-year affair – so Mahek and the others planned to ambush him and steal his phone to obtain the images.
The eight defendants, who all deny charges of murder and of manslaughter, are Natasha Akhtar, (aged 22), of Birmingham, Ansreen Bukhari, (45), of George Eardley Close, Tunstall, Mahek Bukhari, (23), of George Eardley Close, Tunstall, Raees Jamal, (22), of Loughborough, Rekan Karwan, (28), of Leicester, Mohammed Patel, (20), of Leicester, Sanaf Gulammustafa, (22), of Leicester, Ammeer Jamal, (27), of Leicester. The trial continues.