IOPC to investigate police contact with woman left in vegetative state by abuse
The police watchdog is investigating the contact officers had with a woman who was forced to take medication and doused with a corrosive substance, leaving her in a persistent vegetative state from which she will never recover.
Ambreen Fatima Sheikh was 30 when she was given the anti-diabetes drug glimepiride, which induced catastrophic brain injury, after she was brought to the UK from Pakistan following an arranged marriage, Leeds Crown Court heard last week.
Ms Sheikh was also doused in a caustic substance, probably some kind of cleaning fluid, as she was abused in the house in the days leading up to her admission to hospital on August 1 2015, a judge said last week.
The court heard that Ms Sheikh will never recover and only survives by being fed through a tube.
Last week, Ms Sheikh’s husband, Asgar Sheikh, 31, was jailed for seven years and nine months along with his father, Khalid Sheikh, 55, and his mother, Shabnam Sheikh, 52.
The court heard that soon after Ms Sheikh came to the family’s home in Clara Steet, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, in 2014, after an arranged marriage with Asgar Sheikh in Pakistan, the family were not happy with her housework and chores.
Concerns were raised by members of the extended family and two police officers carried out a welfare check on July 12 2015 – about 20 days before Ms Sheikh’s hospital admittance – but reported her as being fit and well.
The sentencing judge, Mrs Justice Lambert, said last week that she attached “little weight to that assessment” because Ms Sheikh spoke little English and her father-in-law was present during the visit.
On Thursday, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) confirmed that it has begun an investigation into contact West Yorkshire Police (WYP) had with Ms Sheikh.
The IOPC said that, following the comments made by the judge during the hearing, it received a mandatory referral from WYP the day after the family were sentenced.
IOPC regional director Emily Barry said: “Our thoughts are with Ms Sheikh and her loved ones, as well as all those affected by this deeply distressing incident.
“In light of the comments made during the recent court hearing, and the unimaginable suffering she has endured, it is only right that a thorough investigation takes place to understand the nature and extent of the police interaction with Ms Sheikh in July 2015.
“This will be carried out entirely independently of the police and consider whether there were any missed opportunities to safeguard her in the days and weeks before she was admitted to hospital.”
In the court hearing last week, the judge said she could not say for sure when the abuse of Ms Sheikh began.
She said she did not know who in the family administered the corrosive substance, which left severe burns on Ms Sheikh’s lower back, bottom and right ear, and must have left her in considerable and lasting pain.
And she said she did not know who “tricked or forced” her to take the glimepiride, which was prescribed to Shabnam Sheikh and is extremely dangerous to non-diabetics, even in small doses.
The judge decided there was a two to three-day delay between Ms Sheikh falling unconscious and the family calling an ambulance and, even when the family raised the alarm, they lied about what had happened to her.
One witness said Ms Sheikh was “intelligent, bright, ambitious and happy-go-lucky” before she moved to the UK, and the judge said she was someone who would “light up a room”.
Asgar Sheikh’s brother, Sakalayne Sheikh, 25, was given a six-month sentence, suspended for two years, and his sister, Shagufa Sheikh, 29, was given an 18-month sentence, also suspended for two years.
Asgar, Khalid, Shabnam and Shagufa Sheikh were all found guilty after a trial of allowing a vulnerable adult to suffer physical harm after a trial last year.
The offence carried a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison at the time of the offence but this has since been increased by Parliament to 14 years.
Asgar, Shabnam and Shagufa Sheikh were also found guilty of doing an act intending to pervert the course of justice.
All five defendants were found guilty of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.
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