Dairy worker stabbed mother-in-law to death, court told

Muhammad Tafham, 31, is alleged to have murdered Rahman Begum, 46, in anger at her home in Rochdale just days after her daughter, Aysha, 25, left him to move back in with her long-term boyfriend in Bradford.

Mother-of-five Mrs Begum was discovered by a relative lying on her kitchen floor with blood around her and a knife in her hand on the lunchtime of February 7. She was pronounced dead at the scene when paramedics arrived.

A post-mortem examination found she had suffered three major stab wounds to the front of her body and one of them passed through her breast bone and right through her heart.

She had been alone at the address in Clement Royds Street when she let in Tafham at about 9.30am before he departed some 45 minutes later, Manchester Minshull Street Court was told.

Opening the case, Andrew Thomas QC said: "The prosecution say that this was murder. Mrs Begum had sided with her daughter in this dispute with the defendant and she had helped her to run away and return to her former boyfriend.

"The prosecution say that the defendant took his anger out on his mother-in-law and attacked her in her own kitchen.

"He then placed the knife in her hand to make it look like suicide and he fled - hoping no-one would know that he had ever been there."

He said that Aysha had entered into an arranged marriage in Pakistan with the defendant in 2015 but Tafham did not join her in the UK until late 2016.

Aysha was said to have "divided loyalties" as she was in a long-term relationship with a man named Malik from Bradford which continued until Tafham was granted a visa to Britain on condition he live with his wife.

Mr Thomas said the couple living together "did not work out" as they argued all the time and that Aysha returned to her mother before Tafham moved in next door in Clement Royds Street when her family rented the property.

"Fierce rows" continued though, he said, as Aysha wanted a divorce and openly wanted to live with her boyfriend.

He told the jury they would hear evidence about what the Crown would say was the defendant's "short temper" and the way he was behaving in the weeks leading up to the killing.

Mr Thomas said: "You will appreciate that he must have been in some emotional turmoil. He had come from Pakistan in the expectation of a new life, leaving his immediate family and friends behind. He spoke little English and he arrived to find that his wife wanted to be with another man".

Aysha "finally had enough of the defendant" and moved back to Bradford on February 4, said the prosecutor.

On the evening of February 6, Mrs Begum helped trick the defendant into leaving the street while Aysha returned with her boyfriend and Mrs Begum helped them hurriedly throw her belongings into bin bags before the lovers drove off.

Mr Thomas said it was "immediately apparent" what had happened when the defendant returned and he tried to call and text his wife during the evening.

The prosecutor added: "It must have been obvious to him that Mrs Begum had been in on the ruse."

He said the Crown understood the defence's case on the charge of murder was that Tafham went into the kitchen on February 7 after hearing a noise and saw Mrs Begum collapsed on the floor.

Mr Thomas went on: "The defendant saw that the knife was still in her chest and he pulled it out. That, he says, explains why her blood was on his clothing. He then panicked, thinking that he would be blamed for her death and that's why he fled without raising the alarm.

"The prosecution say the defendant's explanations are a transparent nonsense. The simple answer is that he was angry and he took it out on Mrs Begum."

The Crown say Tafham also disconnected the property's CCTV system while inside the house in a "vain attempt" to cover his tracks but a camera at the front of the property had already recorded him going in and a similar camera two doors down caught his departure.

Tafham denies murder.

The trial, estimated to last up to two weeks, continues on Thursday.