Face The Family: ‘He was a coward and hid in his cell’
The cousin of a woman murdered in Newham tells of how the killer refused to attend sentencing.
Last updated 25th Aug 2023
The family of a woman murdered in east London have told us what it was like when her killer refused to come to court for sentencing.
38-year-old Jan Mustafa was missing for almost a year when she and 34-year-old Henriett Szucs were found dead in a freezer in Canning Town, having been murdered by Zahid Younis.
Younis was convicted of killing the women in 2020 at Southwark Crown Court and following the guilty verdict was due to face sentencing that same day – but refused to leave his cell to return to court.
It meant that he didn’t have to listen to the impact statements from the families of those he had killed, nor did they get to see him as he received a life sentence with a minimum term of 38 years.
Jan’s cousin Ayse Hussein is now backing the ‘Face the Family’ campaign, calling for new legal powers that would require offenders to appear in court to hear their sentences.
Recalling that day in court, Ayse said: “We were just gutted, it was like ‘we have to suffer but he doesn’t’ – it seems like he gets priority more than the families do and it’s wrong.
“He needed to be there, he needed to listen to the victim statements, but no he chickened out and was a coward and hid in his cell.”
She added: “When you’ve gone through the whole court process, this is the last bit of the process and for him to have that right to stay in his cell is wrong and it needs to change.
“Families want to look at these men or women face-to-face because they’ve killed their loved ones, so why should they always be protected and hidden – it’s also part of the grieving process, so it’s just not fair.”
Recent high-profile cases of offenders not coming to court, including the killers of Zara Aleena in Ilford and Olivia Pratt-Korbel in Liverpool, have prompted the Justice Secretary to say he will look at the issue, but Jan and Henriett’s case shows it is not a new one.
“Our case was in 2020 and it happened then, and it happened in previous cases, but it’s now 2023 and it’s still happening,” said Ayse.
“How many more families and how many more cases are going to go through it before they decide what they are going to do?”
A petition for change is live now, you can sign it by clicking here.
What is the petition calling for?
The petition is calling for the government to introduce new laws which order an offender to be present in court for sentencing or face further punishment.
Following a number of high-profile cases where serious criminal offenders refused to be in the dock when their sentence is passed down, it is petitioning for a change in the law so they can be ordered to appear.
It calls for prison and court staff to be given powers to use reasonable force to get offenders into the dock - as they do to transfer them from a court to prison.
Why are there calls for this?
Families say they are currently being deprived the opportunity of gaining full closure and offenders have the power to deny them that.
They are calling for a shift in the law so that it empowers victims families and gives them every chance to witness justice be delivered.
When and how can I sign the petition?
An official government petition is live now, you can sign it here.