[2025] EWCA Crim 1353

Between June and August 2023, in the Crown Court at Leicester, eight defendants were re-tried before HHJ Spencer KC and a jury on an indictment accusing them of the murder or alternatively the manslaughter of Saqib Hussain and Mohammed Hashim Ijazuddin. On 4 August 2023, the jury convicted four of the defendants of murder. They were Ansreen Bukhari, her daughter Mahek Bukhari, Raees Jamal, and Rekan Karwan. Three defendants, Ameer Jamal (cousin of Raees), Sanaf Gulammustafa, and Natasha Akhtar, were convicted of manslaughter. The eighth defendant, Mohammed Patel, was acquitted.

On 1 September 2023 the judge passed sentence. For the murders he passed the mandatory sentence of life imprisonment, specifying the following as minimum terms, less days spent on remand in custody: for Raees Jamal, 31 years; for Karwan, 26 years 10 months; for Ansreen Bukhari, 26 years and 9 months; and for Mahek Bukhari, 31 years and 8 months. For manslaughter, Ameer Jamal and Gulammustafa were each sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment, and Akhtar was sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment, less credit for time on qualifying curfew in each case.

Applications for leave to appeal against conviction were made by Raees Jamal, Mahek Bukhari, Ansreen Bukhari, Ameer Jamal, Gulammustafa, and Akhtar. All were refused by the single judge. Raees Jamal and Mahek Bukhari did not renew their applications. Ansreen did, but then formally abandoned it in writing the day before the hearing in this court. The remaining three all renew their applications for leave to appeal against conviction for manslaughter. As to sentence, Mahek Bukhari appeals with the leave of the single judge against the minimum term imposed in her case; Akhtar appeals with leave against her sentence of 12 years; and Ameer Jamal and Gulammustafa both renew their applications for leave to appeal.

For simplicity we shall describe each of the four individuals with live applications as an appellant.