Killer nicknamed ‘Nasty’ attacked by victim’s brother during Old Bailey trial

The brother of a deaf woman murdered on a night out tried to attack her ‘remorseless’ killer while he was giving evidence at the Old Bailey.

Jurors asked to go home for the day after being left ‘extremely shaken’ when Abas Mukhtar, 28, tried to get at Duane Owusu while he was in the witness box, away from the secure dock, last month.

Senior judge Richard Marks KC said he had never encountered a courtroom scene so ‘appalling’, saying it nearly derailed the trial completely.

Owusu, 36, was later convicted of murdering Zahwa Mukhtar, 27, who he threw out of a Mercedes, punched to the ground and left for dead, saying ‘No-one cares’ last August.

Judge Marks remanded Owusu into custody to be sentenced next Thursday.

Jurors were not told he was jailed for eight years in 2010 for being the getaway driver in a botched robbery in which a Matalan shop manager was stabbed to death.

Ms Mukhtar had never met Owusu before she came across his group in the early hours of August 16 last year and inhaled laughing gas balloons with them in Stoke Newington.

When they decided to return home to Dagenham, she had got into the already overcrowded car too.

On the journey, she had argued with one of Owusu’s female friends, pulled her hair and threatened to stab someone, jurors were told.

Owusu grabbed her phone and threw it out of the car before throwing her out of the car and aiming two kicks at her face as she sat on the pavement, the prosecution said.

When she got up, Owusu punched her in the neck, causing her to fall on to the ground.

The incident was captured on graphic CCTV footage and witnessed by Owusu’s horrified friends.

Paige Allen described Ms Mukhtar pleading with Owusu to stop before he landed the fatal blow.

She told jurors: ‘He was just rage. He looked like a monster. His behaviour was just wrong. She just fell. Just fell backwards.

‘I went to help her, but he screamed at me to get in the car.’

Ms Mukhtar, who worked as a finance assistant at the Young Vic Theatre in London, was found unresponsive at 5.31am.

Despite the efforts of police and paramedics at the scene, she was pronounced dead at 6.21am, having suffered a fractured skull and brain injury.

Owusu had denied punching Ms Mukhtar and claimed he only pushed her away from the car to ‘de-escalate’ the situation.

Giving evidence, Owusu said: ‘I did not believe she was hurt severely or badly.’

He told jurors he had been ‘traumatised’ by what happened and never meant to harm her.

His trial was halted after plumber Mr Mukhtar became overcome with anger and lunged at Owusu in the witness box, leaving jurors ‘extremely shaken up’.

Defence lawyer Charles McCombe apologised on behalf of Mukhtar for the disruption to the court, to jurors and his parents who had also attended the trial, and for ‘messing the trial up for his sister’.

Judge Marks fined him £1,000 rather than sending him to prison for contempt of court, saying: ‘It was an ugly and sustained attempt at assault.

‘It goes without saying, having seen the incident at close quarters I was absolutely appalled by the incident.

‘I have never in all my years at the bar seen anything like it.’

There was silence in court from the defendant and the victim’s family as the guilty verdict was delivered.

Detective Chief Inspector Phil Clarke, from Scotland Yard, said his thoughts were with Ms Mukhtar’s family who had lost their daughter in ‘horrendous circumstances’.

He said: ‘CCTV footage collected by the investigation team painted a damning picture of Owusu’s guilt.

‘The evidence revealed him to be a remorseless killer, who acted with callous disregard towards his victim.’

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