Prison for couple who inflicted "unimaginable agony" on child
Talha Ikram died in September last year
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Friday, 07, Sep 2007 02:43
A father and his partner have been sentenced to nine years in prison each over the death of a 16-month-old child who sustained a "catalogue of injuries".
Abid Ikram, 31, was found guilty of causing or allowing the death of his young son Talha Ikram in September last year at Southwark crown court today.
His lover Sumaira Parveen, 24, was also found guilty of causing the death after the court heard how she "hated" the boy and saw him as an "obstacle" to the relationship she had with Ikram.
Ikram was also found guilty of perverting the course of justice and sentenced to 12 months imprisonment to run consecutively. Parveen was given a deportation order for when her sentence is served.
Young Talha was pronounced dead after being taken to Central Middlesex hospital from his home in Acton, west London, early on September 6th last year.
He had substantial injuries to his knee, thigh, shin and ribs and was finally killed by a fat embolism caused by a broken femur in his leg.
Talha had been placed in foster care after his father left him alone at home in March 2006, but was allowed to return to Ikram in June of that year.
Within two months the boy was dead and police said he had "suffered a catalogue of injuries, which must have caused him unimaginable agony and distress" in that time.
"Abid Ikram and Sumaira Parveen have been brought to justice for the death of a child without the individual who actually inflicted the fatal act being identified," Detective Inspector Colin Welsh of Scotland Yard's child abuse unit said.
"The circumstances of this case are the exact reasons why this legislation was created. This is one of the first convictions since this legislation was brought in.
"No sentence can be long enough for causing the death of an innocent child by those who should have protected him."
Parveen fled to Pakistan while on police bail over the death but was arrested trying to re-enter the UK.
Both Parveen and Ikram, from Cheltenham Place in Acton, denied causing the death of Talha at court.