Oxford lawyer given life sentence after falsely claiming she was raped

Oxford lawyer Anisah Ahmed set up an ‘evil’ campaign of lies, falsely claiming she was raped as well as staging her own kidnapping and stabbing, a judge heard this morning.

The twisted plot began in 2014 when qualified barrister Ahmed, of Wilkins Road, Cowley, found out her lover, fellow barrister Iqbal Mohammed, was married.

Sitting at Oxford Crown Court, Judge Michael Gledhill QC said: "It appears that Ahmed had no idea that Mohammed was married.

“When she found out, she felt utterly betrayed and took her revenge by putting into effect a comprehensive and orchestrated plan to destroy him – both professionally and personally."

The court heard how the sophisticated campaign of ruin began when the 33-year-old barrister sent intimate messages of their affair to the victim's wife and his colleagues, before emailing his Head of Chambers demanding an investigation into his integrity.

Her scorn then took a more sinister turn when she created fake emails to support her false claims which made it look like they were sent by the victim threatening her, amounting to ‘blackmail’.

The victim Mr Mohammed was publicly arrested at his barrister chambers before he was taken to a police station and locked in a cell for seven hours, the judge heard.

After Mr Mohammed’s chambers instructed IT experts to search the chambers' computers, they discovered that the email evidence had been falsified and police arrested Ahmed for harassment.

She later admitted that she had created the fake emails but persisted in the lie that Mohammed was still harassing her.

When it was decided to prosecute Ahmed for harassment, far from stopping her campaign of destruction - she escalated it.

Judge Gledhill QC said: "As a barrister, Ahmed was well aware of the gravity of what she had done and the potential consequences to herself.

“In order to avoid such consequences, her strategy then took an even more sinister turn.

"She made another attempt to frame Mr Mohammed for a serious criminal offence.

“She reported that he had raped her on several occasions. Her complaint was detailed and convincing, even though it was completely false.

"Her purpose was twofold – revenge and to divert the police attention away from herself and back onto Mr Mohammed. In the short term it worked. Mr Mohammed was again arrested and interviewed.

"The effect on Mr Mohammed can hardly be over-stated. He saw his career, livelihood and family life disintegrating before his eyes, he even thought of taking his own life."

Chillingly, Ahmed’s malice and wrath did not stop with the rape allegations. Instead, she set up fake email accounts in the victim's name, using them to send herself threatening emails.

Similarly, she persuaded people in Birmingham to constantly phone her, supporting her fake allegation that Mr Mohammed was harassing her.

The judge heard that it was discovered that although Ahmed reported she had received threatening phone calls from Mr Mohammed, in reality she had convinced her former boyfriend, Mustafa Hussain, into buying a phone in the victim's name.

The court heard how 34-year-old Hussain, who stood in court to be sentenced for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, was bombarded with texts and calls asking him to help Ahmed get a man who had wronged her and was getting her unfairly prosecuted, arrested.

Prosecuting counsel Iestyn Morgan told Judge Gledhill: “It was a complex and baroque conspiracy to convince the police that Mr Mohammed was pursuing her, threatening her, arranging others to threaten her, threatening to kill her and inflict really serious violence on her."

As her harassment trial approached, Ahmed became increasingly desperate and hatched a plan to stage her own kidnapping and stabbing. She thought that the trial would be derailed if the police thought that she had been attacked by Mr Mohammed, the court heard.

Manipulative Ahmed told Hussain that if he would not stab her, then she would have to stab herself.

She said: "This is the only way out of this sh*t – do it for love."

Having planned the attack with precision, she told Hussain to stab her three times and that she was to be attacked in the driver’s seat of her car from outside the driver’s door.

On July 12, 2015, the police received an emergency call to attend a seriously injured woman in a car parked on the side of a road. She had a ‘horrific’ wound to her thigh.

She was able to give a detailed account of what had happened, saying that she had been stopped by another car, ordered to get out of the car, whereupon she was stabbed in the leg by a man.

In the back of the ambulance, she deliberately said the victim's name, accusing him of kidnapping her and slashing her leg.

Judge Gledhill QC said: "Even while injured, Ahmed did not stop her campaign against Mr Mohammed.

"She persuaded people to message her. Someone pretending to be an accomplice to the kidnap and stabbing, sent her letters, threatening her and warning her to withdraw her statements. There was even sent a letter from someone confessing to have stabbed her on the instructions of Iqbal."

In her final attempt, Ahmed once again convinced Hussain to deliver a threatening letter to her house.

Hussain was duly arrested and, although he said he was acting on behalf of Mohammed, he was not convincing and officers discovered that there was a conspiracy to pervert the course of public justice.

Despite Hussain admitting conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, Ahmed painted herself as the victim which she maintained in court.

Mitigating, her defence counsel Balraj Bhatia QC said: "She is just a few days away from her 34th birthday...she is clearly a manipulative woman.

“She has an inability to cope with rejection and feelings of betrayal but it is likely this behaviour is a coping mechanism as a result of her diagnosis of emotionally unstable personality disorder.

"Her being jilted during the course of her relationship with Iqbal Mohammed, was a trigger. It is very much like the young child who cried wolf, she is now a woman who was driven to concoct false allegations of rape and has been found out. She has made herself vulnerable to future abuse."

The barrister explained how Ahmed had been a qualified lawyer before the conviction which will stop her from any career in law in the future.

He said: "She has lost her career, she approached her studies fastidiously and meticulously. They lived in a family home, her books for a significant period of time had simply invaded the dining room table, they stayed there while she studied pursuing a career in law.

"She stayed up night after night and condensed a two year course into just a year. She qualified, a cause of great celebration and joy. Nothing is worse than when a gift is given and then cruelly taken away, she has to live with that.

"A career she wanted to forge in law that will no longer be possible given this conviction. She has tried to come to terms with it by seeking solace in her religion, she prays five times a day. This has brought great shame on her and her well thought-of Muslim family."

Wearing a religious head dress, Ahmed, was given a ‘discretionary’ life sentence with a minimum term of four years, six months and 10 days.

In his sentencing remarks, Judge Gledhill said: "This case clearly involved very careful planning to destroy the personal and professional life of the victim. The lengths you went to, to exact revenge on Mr Mohammed were almost beyond belief.

"Your actions, Ms Ahmed, were malicious, even evil. You persisted with them over prolonged period of time and you recruited Hussain and others to assist you.

"False allegations can have dreadful consequences on an innocent person who has committed no crime. Being wrongly accused of harassment is serious enough. But accusing him of rape is in quite another category."

Co-defendant Hussain, from Slough, was given a two year prison sentence suspended for two years. He will have to undertake 150 hours unpaid work, eight RAR days and pay £2,000 towards the prosecution costs.