Police failings ‘materially contributed’ to murders of Raneem Oudeh and her mother Khaola Saleem

Published

3 years ago

November 19, 2022

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Multiple failures by West Midlands Police officers “materially contributed” to the deaths of a woman and her mother who were murdered by the daughter’s abusive estranged husband, an inquest has found.

Raneem Oudeh, 22, and her mother, Khaola Saleem, were stabbed to death outside Mrs Saleem’s home in Solihull in August 2018.

They were murdered as Ms Oudeh was on the phone to West Midlands Police, one of several 999 calls she had made to report how scared she was of Janbaz Tarin, her estranged husband.

Tarin admitted the murders and was jailed for life with a minimum of 32 years in December 2018.

The inquest has heard evidence of police call-outs to Ms Oudeh’s address on seven separate occasions in the weeks leading up to the murders.

Recordings of 999 calls were played to the inquest jury, where she was told “go to your Mum’s, lock the door, and we will see you tomorrow.”

She had reported threats to kill, violence and stalking, but officers failed to arrest or investigate Tarin before the murders.

Weeks before he murdered her, she had left her husband after discovering he had three children and a secret wife who was pregnant with a fourth child in Afghanistan.

The inquest was told that in the months leading up to the stabbings Ms Oudeh called 999 14 times to report incidents of domestic abuse which included threats to kill her and to stab her and yet repeatedly police did not log these reports correctly, did not follow up on them correctly, and did not assess them correctly.

West Midlands Police on Friday admitted frankly, “we should have done more,” and said Raneem and Khaola’s family’s dignity throughout the inquest “has been humbling”.

An investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct found there were “missed opportunities”.

Ms Oudeh had also told family members, Tarin had threatened her, saying “if you leave me, I will kill you and your family”.

She had been living with Tarin and her two-year-old son from a previous relationship, but neighbours say she had moved back to her mother’s house after a series of rows.

Tarin continued to harass and threaten her, sleeping outside Mrs Saleem’s house for 12 consecutive nights.

On the night of the murder in August 2018 the pair were seen on CCTV arguing in a shisha lounge in Birmingham.

Ms Oudeh, who was with her mother as the argument escalated, was seen on the footage calling 999, her first of four calls to police that night.

Tarin was kicked out by staff, but moments later drove past in his van, indicating a cutting motion across his neck towards Ms Oudeh.

He then drove to his father’s supermarket and hid a 12-inch steak knife in his waistband before leaving.

His van was captured on CCTV driving towards Mrs Saleem’s home in Solihull.

At 12.26am, Ms Oudeh made the last of her calls to police that evening to say she would be at the Solihull address.

Ten minutes later, they called her back to say officers would call her the following morning to go through the incident.

During that call screaming could be heard in the background, with the words “he’s there, there, there”.

There were further screams before the call went silent.

The women both died of multiple stab wounds during a frenzied attack.

Tarin fled the scene, but was arrested days later following a major manhunt.

Kinaan Saleem, 19, Mrs Saleem’s daughter, who was babysitting Ms Oudeh’s son and witnessed the murder, told Sky News: “I was just about to go to bed until I heard screaming, loads of screaming.

“I looked outside my window and I saw my mother already on the floor and my sister standing next to the perpetrator and he did his killing and dropped his knife and went to the van.”

Kinaan was just 14 years old at the time.

“Until this day, it’s been really hard to deal with,” she said.

“It’s just really hard to cope. From the first call to a police officer, it could have been prevented. Knowing that she actually cried for help and begged for them, and they did not come at all.”

Nour Norris, Mrs Saleem’s sister and Ms Oudeh’s aunt, said: “It’s like watching a horror movie in slow motion as we head to the inevitable conclusion.”

“It was devastating to us because we’d never heard those calls before. Raneem was very clear,” she told Sky News.

She said the family were “very deeply disappointed, very angry, mixed emotions. We are very concerned today about domestic abuse victims and what is happening to them”.

“We do blame the police because the proof of the inquest has shown very clear that the system is failing miserably,” she added.

“The death of my sister and my niece could have been prevented.”

UK

Diogo Jota: Liverpool players join mourners as Premier League star and his brother Andre Silva buried in Portugal

Published

5 hours ago

July 5, 2025

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Diogo Jota: Liverpool players join mourners as Premier League star and his brother Andre Silva buried in Portugal

Liverpool players past and present have joined the family and friends of Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva for their funeral in Portugal.

A service was held in the Igreja Matriz de Gondomar church in their hometown of Gondomar near Porto in northern Portugal on Saturday morning.

Mourners lined the streets and some in the crowd clapped as the brothers’ coffins were carried into the church.

The funeral – in pictures

Jota, 28, leaves behind his wife of only 11 days, Rute Cardoso, and three young children.

His younger brother, 25, was an attacking midfielder for Penafiel in the second tier of Portuguese football.

Liverpool manager Arne Slot, captain Virgil Van Dijk and teammates including Andy Robertson, Conor Bradley, Ryan Gravenberch, Cody Gakpo, Curtis Jones, Darwin Nunez and Joe Gomez were seen at the service.

Former teammates Jordan Henderson, James Milner and Fabinho were also there.

Van Dijk carried a red wreath with Jota’s number 20, while Robertson had a wreath featuring number 30, Silva’s number at Penafiel.

Some of Jota’s teammates in the Portuguese national side also attended, including Bruno Fernandes, of Manchester United, Ruben Dias and Bernardo Silva, of Manchester City, Joao Felix and Renato Veiga, of Chelsea, Nelson Semedo, from Wolves, Joao Moutinho and Rui Patricio.

Ruben Neves was one of the pallbearers after flying in from Florida where he played for Al Hilal in the Club World Cup quarter-final on Friday night.

‘More than a friend’

In a post published on Instagram before the service, he told Jota he had been “more than a friend, we’re family, and we won’t stop being that way just because you’ve decided to sign a contract a little further away from us!”

Jota’s fellow Liverpool midfielder, Alexis Mac Allister, said on Instagram: “I can’t believe it. I’ll always remember your smiles, your anger, your intelligence, your camaraderie, and everything that made you a person. It hurts so much; we’ll miss you. Rest in peace, dear Diogo.”

Porto FC president Andre Villas-Boas and Portugal national team manager Roberto Martinez were also in attendance.

‘With us forever’

Speaking after the ceremony, Martinez said the period since their deaths had been “really, really sad days, as you can imagine, but today we showed we are a large, close family.

“Their spirit will be with us forever.”

The service was private, but the words spoken by the Bishop of Porto, Manuel Linda, were broadcast to those standing outside the church.

He told Jota’s children, who were not at the service, that he was praying for them specifically, as well as their mother and grandparents.

“There are no words, but there are feelings,” he said, adding: “We also suffer a lot and we are with you emotionally.”

The brothers died after a Lamborghini they were travelling in burst into flames following a suspected tyre blowout in the early hours of Thursday morning.

No other vehicles are said to have been involved in the incident.

Liverpool have delayed the return of their players for pre-season following Jota’s death and players past and present paid tribute to him and his brother on social media.

Flowers have been left outside Anfield, where flags have been lowered to half-mast and all club shops, museums and tours have been closed until Monday.

UK

Rachel Reeves hints at tax rises in autumn budget after welfare bill U-turn

Published

8 hours ago

July 5, 2025

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Rachel Reeves hints at tax rises in autumn budget after welfare bill U-turn

Rachel Reeves has hinted that taxes are likely to be raised this autumn after a major U-turn on the government’s controversial welfare bill.

Sir Keir Starmer’s Universal Credit and Personal Independent Payment Bill passed through the House of Commons on Tuesday after multiple concessions and threats of a major rebellion.

MPs ended up voting for only one part of the plan: a cut to universal credit (UC) sickness benefits for new claimants from £97 a week to £50 from 2026/7.

Initially aimed at saving £5.5bn, it now leaves the government with an estimated £5.5bn black hole – close to breaching Ms Reeves’s fiscal rules set out last year.

In an interview with The Guardian, the chancellor did not rule out tax rises later in the year, saying there were “costs” to watering down the welfare bill.

“I’m not going to [rule out tax rises], because it would be irresponsible for a chancellor to do that,” Ms Reeves told the outlet.

“We took the decisions last year to draw a line under unfunded commitments and economic mismanagement.

“So we’ll never have to do something like that again. But there are costs to what happened.”

Meanwhile, The Times reported that, ahead of the Commons vote on the welfare bill, Ms Reeves told cabinet ministers the decision to offer concessions would mean taxes would have to be raised.

The outlet reported that the chancellor said the tax rises would be smaller than those announced in the 2024 budget, but that she is expected to have to raise tens of billions more.

It comes after Ms Reeves said she was “totally” up to continuing as chancellor after appearing tearful at Prime Minister’s Questions.

Criticising Sir Keir for the U-turns on benefit reform during PMQs, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the chancellor looked “absolutely miserable”, and questioned whether she would remain in post until the next election.

Sir Keir did not explicitly say that she would, and Ms Badenoch interjected to say: “How awful for the chancellor that he couldn’t confirm that she would stay in place.”

In her first comments after the incident, Ms Reeves said she was having a “tough day” before adding: “People saw I was upset, but that was yesterday.

“Today’s a new day and I’m just cracking on with the job.”

Sir Keir also told Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby on Thursday that he “didn’t appreciate” that Ms Reeves was crying in the Commons.

“In PMQs, it is bang, bang, bang,” he said. “That’s what it was yesterday.

“And therefore, I was probably the last to appreciate anything else going on in the chamber, and that’s just a straightforward human explanation, common sense explanation.”

UK

Diogo Jota and Andre Silva’s funeral in pictures

Published

10 hours ago

July 5, 2025

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Diogo Jota and Andre Silva's funeral in pictures

The family and friends of Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva have been joined by Liverpool stars past and present and other Portuguese players at the pair’s funeral near Porto.

The Liverpool forward, 28, and his brother died in a car crash in Spain on Thursday.

Pictures below show the funeral at the Igreja Matriz de Gondomar church in the town of Gondomar near Porto. Click here for our liveblog coverage of the day’s events.