Family jailed over abuse have convictions quashed

Members of a family who were jailed for allowing a vulnerable adult to suffer physical harm have had their convictions overturned at the Court of Appeal.

Asgar Sheikh and his parents Khalid and Shabnam were jailed in February 2024 after they were convicted following a trial at Leeds Crown Court. Asgar's sister Shagufa was given a suspended sentence.

The victim, Asgar's wife Ambreen, survives in a persistent vegetative state, the trial heard.

However, an appeal hearing concluded the case against the defendants was "riddled with evidential difficulties".

Barristers representing the four at the Court of Appeal hearing on 4 December argued the trial judge, Mrs Justice Lambert, "misconstrued" the relevant section of the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act which the defendants were convicted under.

This, they argued, "led her into error" in rejecting the defence barristers' argument there was no case to answer.

It could also have led her to "fail to direct the jury appropriately as to its application to the facts", they added.

The argument related to the administration of the anti-diabetes drug glimepiride to Ambreen which caused a catastrophic brain injury, and whether the family members should have foreseen it and acted to prevent it.

The trial heard Ambreen had earlier suffered a severe burn to her lower back, but the prosecution could not prove who in the household had caused the injury.

One of the factors required to prove someone is guilty of causing or allowing the death or serious injury of a vulnerable adult or child is that the unlawful act causing their death or serious injury occurred in circumstances that the defendant foresaw, or ought to have foreseen.

The trial heard expert medical evidence that glimepiride was "very, very rarely" known to be used as a "weapon" to deliberately harm someone.

However, the Court of Appeal judges said there was "nothing in the ruling which indicates that [Mrs Justice] Lambert had regard to [this] evidence".

The judges reviewing the case said Mrs Justice Lambert should have "specifically addressed the question of intent in the administration of a noxious substance" in relation to the glimepiride in her summing-up to the jury.

The Court of Appeal said there was not enough evidence for the jury to have reasonably concluded there was malicious intent in administering the drug, or that the earlier injury to Ambreen indicated its use had been intended to achieve the same aim of "humiliating" her.

The Court of Appeal hearing concluded that the argument of "no case to answer" put forward by the defence at the original trial "should have succeeded".

During the trial, jurors were told the victim only survived by being fed through a tube and would eventually die as a consequence of what happened to her.

After the jury returned guilty verdicts Asgar, then 31, Khalid, then 55, and Shabnam, then 52, were jailed for seven years and nine months. They have now been released from prison, the Ministry of Justice confirmed.

Shagufa, then 29, was given an 18-month sentence, suspended for two years.

Asgar, Khalid, Shabnam and Shagufa did not appeal against their convictions for perverting the course of justice in relation to their delay in seeking medical assistance and concealing the circumstances of Ambreen's lapse into unconsciousness.

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