Police watchdog launches investigation into force over contact with woman left in vegetative state by family
Officers carried out a welfare check 20 days before Ambreen Fatima Sheikh was admitted to hospital
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The police watchdog is launching an investigation into a force over contact officers had with a woman who was left in a vegetative state by her family.
Ambreen Fatima Sheikh was 30 when she was “tricked or forced” to take the anti-diabetes drug glimepiride – which induced catastrophic brain injury – after she was brought to the UK from Pakistan following an arranged marriage, a trial heard. Ms Sheikh, who is now 39, was also doused in a caustic substance, probably some kind of cleaning fluid, which left severe burns, as she was abused in the house in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire.
Less than three weeks before she was admitted to hospital on 1 August 2015, two West Yorkshire Police officers carried out a welfare check. Concerns had been raised by members of the extended family – but the pair reported Ms Sheikh as being fit and well. A judge said she attached “little weight to that assessment” on 12 July because Ms Sheikh spoke little English and her father-in-law was present during the visit.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) on Thursday announced its investigation into West Yorkshire Police (WYP) over whether there were any “missed opportunities” to safeguard Ms Sheikh in the days and weeks before her family inflicted the “unimaginable” life-changing injuries, from which she will never recover.
At Leeds Crown Court last week, Ms Sheikh’s husband, Asgar Sheikh, 31, was jailed for seven years and nine months along with his father, Khalid Sheikh, 55, and his mother, Shabnam Sheikh, 52. Asgar Sheikh’s brother, Sakalayne Sheikh, 25, was given a six-month sentence, suspended for two years, and his sister, Shagufa Sheikh, 29, was given an 18-month sentence, also suspended for two years.
Following Ms Justice Lambert’s comments over the welfare check at the sentencing hearing, WYP made a mandatory referral to the IOPC last Thursday.
The watchdog’s independent investigation will look at the nature of the police contact with Ms Sheikh prior to her admission to hospital, as well as the actions and decision-making of those involved.
IOPC Regional Director Emily Barry said: “Our thoughts are with Ms Sheikh and her loved ones, as well as all those affected by this deeply distressing incident.
“In light of the comments made during the recent court hearing, and the unimaginable suffering she has endured, it is only right that a thorough investigation takes place to understand the nature and extent of the police interaction with Ms Sheikh in July 2015.
“This will be carried out entirely independently of the police and consider whether there were any missed opportunities to safeguard her in the days and weeks before she was admitted to hospital.”
It was initially thought Ms Sheikh would die but, when her ventilator was turned off in hospital, she began to breathe for herself. The court heard that she has been left unaware of herself or her environment, without motor response or response to pain, and will never recover. Prosecutors said she only survives by being fed through a tube and will eventually die as a consequence of what happened to her, although this may not happen for many years.
The sentencing judge said: “It is difficult to imagine a more serious injury, short of death.”
The court heard that Ms Sheikh came to the family’s home in Clara Steet in 2014 after an earlier arranged marriage with Asgar in Pakistan. The judge said she rarely left the house and never by herself. She had no independent income, no friends in the UK and could speak only a little English.
None of the family gave evidence in court and the judge said she could not say for sure when the abuse began.
The trial heard evidence that, soon after Ms Sheikh arrived in the UK, the family were not happy with her housework and chores, and Khalid Sheikh had suggested she should be sent back to Pakistan.
During sentencing, the judge said she did not know who administered the corrosive substance, which left severe burns on Ms Sheikh’s lower back, bottom and right ear, and must have left her in considerable and lasting pain. And she said she did not know who “tricked or forced” her to take the glimepiride, which was prescribed to Shabnam Sheikh and is extremely dangerous to non-diabetics, even in small doses.
The judge decided there was a two to three-day delay between Ms Sheikh falling unconscious and the family calling an ambulance, during which she became highly dehydrated and inhaled fluids which may have exacerbated her brain injury.
Even when the family called 999, they lied about what had happened to her, the judge said.
“You would all have been aware of her pain and distress,” she said. “It’s just not realistic to conclude that you did not all know of Ambreen’s predicament and her desperate need for emergency medical care. You all also knew why she was in that condition.”
The court heard that Ms Sheikh is now being looked after in a palliative care setting and will not recover but could live for decades more.
She was in good health before her collapse and there is some evidence that she was a teacher in Pakistan, the court heard. One witness said she was “intelligent, bright, ambitious and happy-go-lucky” before she moved to the UK, and the judge said she was someone who would “light up a room”.
The judge said Ms Sheikh’s father is now dead and her mother is in poor health in Pakistan. She has seven siblings and one of her brothers has been over to visit her.
Asgar, Khalid, Shabnam and Shagufa Sheikh were all found guilty of allowing a vulnerable adult to suffer physical harm after a trial last year. Asgar, Shabnam and Shagufa Sheikh were also found guilty of doing an act intending to pervert the course of justice. All five defendants were found guilty of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.