Not So Much ‘Dueling Banjos’, More ‘Dueling Sitars’…

The jury took far too long, in my view, to reach a verdict in this case:

The family of an aspiring lawyer wept today as the man who stabbed him to death in a trivial dispute between neighbours was convicted of murder at the Old Bailey.

But despite there being camera-phone video of the crime, it was still a 10-2 majority, and the others got off:

… the jury cleared Uddin’s wife Gulbahar Begun, 48, of attacking the neighbours with a fearsome dha or machete.

She was found not guilty of two charges of causing grievous bodily harm and alternative counts of wounding.

The jury had watched shocking scenes of violence captured in mobile phone footage while members of Mr Ahmed’s family were overwhelmed with tears at the back of court.

Prosecutor Edward Brown QC had claimed it was Begun who could be seen wielding the knife above her head on a residential street on the Isle of Dogs in May last year, but the jury decided otherwise.

Hmmm. I bet they all swallowed the ‘evidence’ of Bigfoot though!

Mr Ahmed’s sister Jannatul Ferdous, 27, a primary school teacher from Stepney, said: “He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He wanted to help, but it was him who was helpless in the end.

“He was a very loyal friend and he was brave enough to stick up for his friend. He didn’t know that someone would do that to him.

“He lost his life over such a tiny thing, a silly dispute. I don’t know why they had to get out knives. At what point did he feel threatened by two boys who greeted him by saying, ‘Salam alaikum’, meaning peace be with you?”

Out of respect for the family, I’ll suppress the obvious comment that rose unbidden to my lips…