LONDON: An inquiry in the UK has found that police failures “materially contributed” to the brutal murders of two women in 2018.
Raneem Oudeh, 22, and her mother Khaola Saleem were attacked by the former’s abusive husband Janbaz Tarin, who stabbed the pair to death outside Saleem’s home in Solihull.
Despite multiple appeals to West Midlands Police in the run up to her death, Oudeh was told that officers were unable to arrest or charge Tarin for an offense.
In December 2018, he was handed a life sentence with a minimum term of 32 years.
Before the murders, Oudeh had repeatedly warned police of death threats, abuse and stalking by Tarin, with officers visiting her home seven times before her death.
She had warned family members that Tarin had said: “If you leave me, I will kill you and your family.”
The 22-year-old had left Tarin several weeks before the murder after discovering that he had another wife and three children.
On the night of Oudeh’s murder, she had phoned police four times, including during the attack.
The pair were seen on a security camera having an argument in a Birmingham shisha lounge just before the attack.
After Tarin was removed from the lounge by workers due to the argument, he drove past the business in a vehicle, performing a neck-slice motion with his hands while looking at Oudeh.
Just after midnight, Tarin drove to Saleem’s address and murdered the mother and daughter.
Saleem’s daughter, 19-year-old Kinaan Saleem, witnessed the murder aged 14. She told Sky News: “I was just about to go to bed until I heard screaming, loads of screaming. I looked outside my window and I saw my mother already on the floor and my sister standing next to the perpetrator and he did his killing and dropped his knife and went to the van.
“Until this day it’s been really hard to deal with. It’s just really hard to cope. From the first call to a police officer, it could have been prevented. Knowing that she actually cried for help and begged for them and they did not come at all.”
Saleem’s sister Nour Norris said: “It’s like watching a horror movie in slow motion as we head to the inevitable conclusion. It was devastating to us because we’d never heard those calls before. Raneem was very clear.
“(We are) very deeply disappointed, very angry, mixed emotions. We are very concerned today about domestic abuse victims and what is happening to them.
“We do blame the police because the proof of the inquest has shown very clear that the system is failing miserably. The death of my sister and my niece could have been prevented.”
