Saturday, November 20, 2010

Police arrest ‘husband and father-in-law after Asian woman is stabbed to death in back of car’

A husband was remanded in custody under the Mental Health Act today after a pretty young woman was knifed to death in a car in what was believed to be a violent family argument.

The 27-year-old victim bled to death on the back seat of the vehicle after the bloody attack which severed an artery was launched while she was travelling with two men, believed to be her husband and father-in-law.

Detectives found a bloodstained knife alongside the body of the young woman in the Volkswagen Passat car which was parked on the road outside the family’s semi-detached home.

Two rapid response paramedic cars and an ambulance were sent to the home of the victim in Crawley, West Sussex, but there was nothing they could do to save her

A post mortem examination revealed that the mother-of-one, who has not yet been formally identified, bled to death after her femoral artery was severed.

a 30-year-old man, arrested on suspicion of murder, was detained in a hospital secure unit under the Mental Health Act.

His father, aged 51 years, has been released on police bail to return to Crawley police station on January 25.

Police confirmed that the victim and the two men arrested were all Asian and known to each other.

Neighbours identified them as the Baig family and said that they had been celebrating Eid, the Muslim equivalent of Christmas, last night when the killing happened.

The alarm was raised when ambulance controllers and police received a 999 call from the family home in, Crawley, West Sussex.

Two paramedic rapid response cars and an ambulance were sent to the scene but there was nothing the medics could do to save the woman who had been stabbed to death.

Police from the Sussex Major Crime Team were contacted immediately by the first officers to arrive at the scene and a major murder investigation was launched.

A spokesman for Sussex Police said that two men - understood to be father and son - were arrested at the pebble-dashed house in Woodfield Road and taken to the cells at Crawley Police Station on suspicion of murder.

The Volkswagen Passat car, which was parked outside on the road, was understood to have a large quantity of blood on the seats and was taken away by police for a full-scale forensic examination.

Detective Chief Inspector Nigel Smith said: ‘This is an intricate investigation and we need to establish the exact circumstances of how this lady died.

‘We know that the attack took place in the car, while three occupants were travelling in it, which then returned to Woodford Road, from where the ambulance service was called.

‘We are advised that the nature of the injury would have resulted in her death in a matter of minutes.’

The man can be detained under section two of the Mental Health Act for 28 days.

A neighbour who asked not to be named, said that the Baig family had been celebrating Eid.

‘The father was shouting loudly and kept rushing in and out of the house. Other neighbours all came out of their homes into the street to see what all the commotion was about.

‘The father seemed very agitatated and then suddenly lots of police cars turned up,’ said the woman. When the police arrived he was outside at the police van and hitting his head while talking in a foreign language.

‘The father owns lots of properties around here and is landlord to many families. He is also a painter and decorator,’ she added.

‘There are two sons and the older one, Kashif, got married about a year-and-a-half ago. It was a really big do and the house was all done up - they were so proud.

‘The rumours are that it was his bride who has been murdered and that it was he who was arrested by the police.

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