A46 crash murder trial told that TikTok influencer 'set a trap' for mother's ex-lover
A social media influencer with more than a hundred and twenty thousand followers on TikTok, has gone on trial for murder alongside her mother.
Mahek Bukhari, 23, and her mother Ansreen Bukhari, 45, both of George Eardley Close in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, are accused of playing a part in a car crash on the A46 in Leicestershire in February, in which two men died.
Saqib Hussain and Mohammed Hashim Ijazuddin, both 21, and from Banbury, Oxfordshire, are said by prosecutors to have been killed, when their Skoda was sent crashing into a tree where it was “virtually split in two” by the impact, before catching fire just after midnight on February 11 2022.
Leicester Crown Court heard that in February 2022, the two men were being chased along the A46 in Leicestershire.
Jurors were played a 999 call from Mr Hussain, in which he is heard pleading several times for help, saying he and Mr Ijazuddin were being rammed by two cars with people wearing balaclavas.
In the recording played to the court, he said: “They’re trying to ram us off the road. Please, I’m begging you, I’m going to die.”
He was heard to say “Oh my God”, before there was a scream, with the call cutting off abruptly at the sound of an impact.
The car was later found on fire with the bodies of the two men inside.
Officers saw “a body hanging out the remains of the nearside passenger seat”, but the heat of the flames prevented rescuers from helping Mr Hussain, who worked at a bakery.
The jury heard that after firefighters extinguished the blaze, Mr Ijazuddin’s body was also recovered, with the two men only identifiable by “dental records”.
The pair had been friends since school, with Mr Ijazuddin agreeing to drive his friend to Leicester that night – described by prosecutors in court as a “fatal mistake that cost him his life”.
Prosecutor Collingwood Thompson KC, told jurors that Saqib Hussain had been in a relationship with one of the accused, Ansreen Bhukari, a 45-year-old married woman.
Jurors were told she ended the relationship in January and refused to speak to him.
The prosecution claims this angered and frustrated Mr Hussain and he threatened to send sexually explicit material on his mobile phone to her husband and son, unless she spoke to him.
Mrs Bukhari is the mother of Mahek Bhukari, a TikTok star.
Mr Thompson told jurors she sent a message to her mother saying 'I'll soon get him jumped by guys and he won't know what day it is'.
Mr Thompson told the jury if the affair had become public, it would have damaged Mahek Bhukari's standing as a social influencer, and her relationship with her father.
Jurors were told that Saqib Hussain believed he had spent around £3000 on Mrs Bukhari during their three-year relationship, and demanded the money back.
The court heard that a deal had been struck that he would get his money back on the basis that he wouldn't post the explicit videos online.
The prosecution says a trap was plotted to gain access to the mobile phone, with the aim of causing him serious injury or silencing him completely.
In the hours before the crash, it was claimed Mahek Bukhari, her mother and the six other defendants drove to a Tesco car park at Hamilton in Leicester.
CCTV footage showed the car Mr Hussain was in arriving, before driving off.
Mr Thompson said at that point he and his friend realised something was wrong and sped off.
The mother and daughter appeared in the dock alongside co-accused Rekan Karwan, 28, of Tomlin Road, Leicester, and Raees Jamal, 22, of Lingdale Close, Loughborough, who are both alleged to have recruited others, including Natasha Akhtar, 22, of Alum Rock Road, Birmingham, who owned one of the cars involved in the alleged pursuit.
Also in the dock are Sanaf Gulammustafa, 22, of Littlemore Close, and Ameer Jamal, 27, of Catherine Street, and Mohammed Patel, 20, of Braybrooke Road, all from Leicester.
The three women and five men deny two counts of murder and two alternative charges of manslaughter. The trial continues.