Five years for dad who stabbed wife as daughter watched

Azhar Hussain (27), inflicted back, chest, chin and arm wounds on Tahiba Khan (25), who “thought she was going to die.”

Hussain, of Carlisle Street, Rotherham, was found not guilty of attempted murder, but had previously pleaded guilty to wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm and was jailed for five years, less 270 days spent in custody on remand.

Hussain launched the attack after the couple’s arranged marriage broke down and she refused his pleas to return.

Judge Mr Justice Davis said that Hussain “coolly sauntered away” after the stabbing, adding that the attack was borne out of his “rage and jealousy.”

He said Hussain had done a wicked thing and it was a disgrace that he thought he had the absolute right to to return to his wife despite what had happened.

The judge went on: “People like you make others afraid to go out in the streets.

“The CCTV shows quite clearly that at one stage you stopped and then started up again.

“When you had stabbed your own wife several times, you simply coolly sauntered away. You didn’t care.”

Mr Justice Davis added that although the attack was not “significantly premeditated,” he did not believe Hussain was carrying the knife around by chance.

The judge said Hussain was lucky his wife’s injuries were not more serious.Ms Khaliq was left bleeding profusely from her chest and back as Hussain knifed her from behind in the street before pursuing her into a taxi and continuing to stab her, a court heard.

Her terrified seven-year-old daughter, Sameeha, was covered in blood, crying and pleading with Hussain to stop.

The separated mother of two told a jury at Sheffield Crown Court: “I felt really scared, I thought he was going to kill me and finish me off.”

The lunchtime attack on Bridgegate ended after shoppers, workmen, bank staff and others went to the injured woman’s aid and Hussain ran off after also threatening to kill an elderly man.

But he was arrested by police a short time later after other onlookers followed him into Rotherham bus station.

A blood-stained kitchen knife, with a two-to-three inch blade, which Hussain threw over Chantry bridge, was recovered by investigating officers.

CCTV footage of the incident last September was shown to the jury.

Ms Khaliq, who married Hussain in 2001 at the age of 16 when she went to Pakistan, said that the couple, who had two daughters, Sameeha and Zahar (5), separated in June 2010 and had their home repossessed because of mortgage problems.

She accepted that a friend she had been staying with may have said things to Hussain to “wind him up” which could have made him angry. 

In police interviews, Hussain, who came to Rotherham in 2004, mostly made no comment on legal advice, but later told custody officers that he loved his wife and had “done something bad to her.”

His barrister, Rupert Bowers, said that his lack of education played an important part in the events and problems emanated from the arranged marriage.

He said that it was not pre-meditated but “a sudden, short and violent loss of control.”