Murder-accused TikToker did not make kill threat, her mum says

Ansreen Bukhari (left) and her TikTok influencer daughter Mahek are on trial at Leicester Crown Court

A woman accused of murdering her young lover has denied her TikTok influencer daughter made a threat to have him killed.

Ansreen Bukhari, her daughter Mahek and six others deny killing Saqib Hussain and his friend Hashim Ijazuddin.

Prosecutors say their car was rammed off the A46 in Leicestershire on 11 February 2022 to keep secret an affair between Mrs Bukhari and Mr Hussain.

Giving evidence, Mrs Bukhari said Mr Hussain had not been "set up".

Leicester Crown Court has heard Mr Hussain had been blackmailing his former lover with sexual videos and images after Mrs Bukhari, 46, tried to end the three-year affair.

It is claimed the defendants lured him and his friend Mr Ijazuddin, both 21 and of Banbury, Oxfordshire, to Leicester for a meeting in a Tesco car park before ramming their Skoda Fabia car off the road, causing both men's deaths.

The prosecution alleges the group, in an Audi TT and a Seat Leon, were attempting to retrieve Mr Hussain's phone to stop the publication of sexually-explicit images and videos of Ansreen.

Hashim Ijazuddin (left) and Saqib Hussain died at the scene of the crash

Prosecutor Collingwood Thompson KC said Mr Hussain had realised the car park meeting was a "trap" after noticing there were more people there than he thought.

Cross-examining Mrs Bukhari, Mr Thompson said: "He must've smelled a rat hadn't he? Because he knew that he had been set up."

Mrs Bukhari said that was not correct.

The court has previously heard about a "heated" conversation her daughter Mahek Bukhari, 24, had with Mr Hussain as the three cars travelled along the A46.

Mr Thompson asked Mrs Bukhari: "Had [Mahek] made a threat to have him killed?"

Mrs Bukhari said her daughter had not.

'Just coming to speak'

The prosecutor then brought up the 999 call, which was previously played to the jury, made by Mr Hussain.

In it, he says there are two cars with people inside trying to ram him off the road.

"Here he is telling the 999 operator that they're 'trying to kill me'," Mr Thompson said.

"You knew what was going to happen to him, didn't you?"

Mrs Bukhari told the jury she just wanted to talk to Mr Hussain and did not want to harm him.

"I just don't know why he's not stopping, he's come all that way, I've come all that way and it just needed to be sorted," she said.

"The plan was he was just coming to speak to me and that's it."

Wearing a grey suit jacket, the mother-of-two - who travelled in the front passenger seat of an Audi TT on the night in question - told the jury she "had her head down" during the chase and did not see the Skoda leave the road.

The prosecution claims the car carrying the two men was rammed off the road

"Are you telling this jury you saw absolutely nothing of the Skoda leaving the road?", Mr Thompson asked.

The defendant said she did not.

Mrs Bukhari told the court she only knew what had happened to the Skoda when they drove back past the burning wreckage back towards Leicester.

She said she was "upset and crying" at that point.

Asked what she thought had happened, she said the Skoda must have "lost control".

Mr Thompson asked if anyone had tried to contact Mr Hussain to see if he was OK, to which Mrs Bukhari replied they did not.

"The reason, I suggest, no-one did that is everyone knew that whoever was in that car with him was dead," Mr Thompson said.

"I just wished that they were OK," Ansreen replied.

The court was played bodycam footage from Staffordshire Police when they arrested the Bukharis at their home in Stoke-on-Trent later that morning.

In the clip, Mahek tells officers they had been in Nottingham.

"That was a lie wasn't it? Did you [Ansreen] say it was a tragic accident by the way the Skoda was driving?," Mr Thompson said.

"You didn't correct her, did you, and say that they were at the scene of the incident?"

Mrs Bukhari said: "There was too much on my mind, it didn't come to my mind why she said Nottingham."

Asked if Mahek was trying to mislead the police, Mrs Bukhari said: "Yes."

Front, from left: Ansreen Bukhari, Mahek Bukhari, Rekan Karwan, Raees Jamal with back, from left: Ameer Jamal, Sanaf Gulammustafa, Natasha Akhtar and Mohammed Patel

The defendants are:

• Ansreen Bukhari, 46, of George Eardley Close, Stoke-on-Trent

• Mahek Bukhari, 24, of George Eardley Close, Stoke-on-Trent

• Rekan Karwan, 29, of Tomlin Road, Leicester

• Raees Jamal, 23, of Lingdale Close, Loughborough

• Mohammed Patel, 21, of Braybrooke Road, Leicester

• Natasha Akhtar, 23, of Alum Rock Road, Birmingham

• Sanaf Gulammustafa, 23, of Littlemore Close, Leicester

• Ameer Jamal, 28, of Catherine Street, Leicester

All eight deny two counts of murder and alternative charges of two counts of manslaughter.

The trial continues.