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Aamir Siddiqi murder: 'why would anyone kill my boy?' Aamir Siddiqi murder: 'why would anyone kill my boy?'
(about 5 hours later)
It was an ordinary spring Sunday afternoon at 110 Ninian Road in the Cardiff neighbourhood of Roath. Seventeen-year-old Aamir Siddiqi, a clever young man who planned to study law at university, was upstairs working on his A-level texts. His father, Iqbal Ahmad, was somewhere in the end-of-terrace house singing to himself while his mother, Parveen, was enjoying the day off from her work as a play development worker. It had been a typical Sunday afternoon at 110 Ninian Road, Cardiff. Aamir Siddiqi, a talented 17-year-old student who planned to go to law school, was upstairs working on his A-level textbooks while his father, Iqbal Ahmad, was elsewhere in the house absent-mindedly singing to himself.
When the doorbell rang Aamir thought it was his Qur'an teacher and shouted that he would get the door. His mother glanced up and thought she could make out the shape of the teacher covering his head with a piece of cloth through the glass of the front door. When the doorbell rang Aamir thought it was his Qur'an teacher and shouted that he would answer it. His mother, Parveen, glanced up and thought she could make out the shape of the teacher covering his head with a piece of cloth through the glass of the front door.
She was mistaken. What she had seen was a man putting a balaclava on and as Aamir opened the door two masked men burst in brandishing daggers above their heads and howling like animals. Mrs Ahmad thought it had to be a joke – until the men began lashing out at Aamir. She was mistaken. What she had seen was a man putting a balaclava on and as Aamir opened the door two masked attackers burst in brandishing daggers above their heads. Howling like animals, they slashed at the teenager, leaving him with fatal wounds.
Their attack was swift and brutal. Aamir tried to get away and made it into the dining room but fell to the floor and was stabbed as he lay there. Mr Ahmad, 68, tried to prise the killers away from his son and his wife, 55, jumped on to one of the men but was shrugged off. on Friday the two knifemen, Ben Hope, 39, and Jason Richards, 38, were found guilty of murdering Aamir in a botched "hit". The men had been paid £1,000 each to target not Aamir but a middle-aged man who lived in a neighbouring street in Roath, Cardiff. Aamir had died the victim of mistaken identity.
The men raced back out, leaving Aamir bleeding badly from three stab wounds, one 7cm deep. His parents were also hurt but Mrs Ahmad ran out on to the street calling out: "Help, help, help, my son is dying." During the trial, the prosecution said the killers had been guilty not just of murder on that Sunday in April 2010 but "staggering incompetence".
Police and paramedics arrived to a desperate, bloody scene. They could not save Aamir and he was pronounced dead in hospital. Mrs Ahmad phoned her daughter Miriam and told her: "He has left this world, they have killed him." Outside court, Aamir's family spoke movingly of the moment the pair, hardened criminals and drug addicts, had destroyed their happiness forever and said that though they did not want revenge, the men deserved the long jail terms they will receive next week.
Mr Ahmad, 71, said: "I think that they have done something very sinister and they will be sentenced very heavily, and that is what they deserve.
"We do not want revenge or to feel bad towards anybody, but when someone has done something so bad they should be punished."
Mrs Ahmad, 57, said they had struggled to come to terms with the manner of their son's death. She added: "I still feel his presence around me. I miss his big hugs. Life changed when the doorbell rang and he opened the door. It took seconds. We didn't even get the chance to wonder what had happened."
The attack was, indeed, swift and brutal. Aamir made it into the dining room but fell to the floor and was stabbed as he lay there. Mr Ahmad tried to prise the killers away from his son and his wife jumped on to one of the men but was shrugged off.
The men raced back out, leaving Aamir bleeding badly from three stab wounds, one 7cm deep. His parents were also hurt but Mrs Ahmad ran out on to the street calling out: "Help, help, help, my son is dying." Police and paramedics arrived to a desperate, bloody scene but could not save Aamir.
The murder shocked the neighbourhood. The family had lived in their house for 18 years and were regarded highly. The motive was a mystery. The men had made no attempt to steal anything and Aamir had no known enemies.The murder shocked the neighbourhood. The family had lived in their house for 18 years and were regarded highly. The motive was a mystery. The men had made no attempt to steal anything and Aamir had no known enemies.
Appealing for help to find the killers, Aamir's family painted a picture of him as a keen sportsman who was looking forward to going to Cardiff University after his exams. "He was like his dad – he was a gentleman, kind and sensitive and really funny," they said. By the Sunday evening police were working on the theory that Aamir had been the victim of mistaken identity.
By the Sunday evening police were working on the theory that Aamir had been the victim of mistaken identity and within hours were on the trail of violent Cardiff drug addicts, Jason Richards, 38, and Ben Hope, 39. Richards and Hope were pinpointed as suspects after a shopkeeper handed in CCTV footage that caught them in the area. Both were familiar to police. Richards' record includes an attack on two police officers and a nasty assault in which he gouged a shop security guard's eye. Hope has served time for kidnap and squirting a noxious substance into a store detective's eye. He once broke the nose of a prison guard.
Richards had a long record of violence – including assaulting his ex-wife and gouging a security guard's eye – who claimed he became addicted to heroin while in prison. Hope was a dealer who sold up to 1kg of class A drugs and thousands of Valium tablets every week. The pair met in jail and they became so close that when they were free again Richards depended on Hope to inject heroin into parts of his body that he could not reach. As well as taking drugs both worked as dealers. Hope sold up to a kilo of class A drugs and thousands of Valium tablets every week.
When Richards was arrested three days after the killing, he denied involvement but claimed Hope had come to his flat in blood-stained clothing after the murder. Hope sobbed when he was arrested two days later and said: "Jason did the murder." He said he had been in a drugs "stupor" at the time of the crime. During the four-month trial at Swansea crown court both continued to blame each other and a "third man". Among the crucial evidence police found was CCTV footage showing Hope with an envelope stuffed with cash buying trainers and a laptop two hours after the killing.
But the investigation was painstaking. Officers examined the equivalent of eight years of CCTV footage from more than 100 cameras and gathered almost 5,000 exhibits. Among the crucial evidence was CCTV footage showing Hope with a cash-stuffed envelope buying trainers and a laptop two hours after the killing. Vital too was a stolen Volvo that had been seen speeding away from Aamir's house. The car was traced and blood stains matching Aamir's DNA profile – along with Hope's and Richards' fingerprints – were discovered inside.
More important was a Volvo XC90 seen speeding away from Aamir's house. The car was found with blood stains matching Aamir's DNA profile and the fingerprints of Hope and Richards inside. Officers also found a sports bag dumped near the river Taff containing a hoodie stained with Aamir's blood and a fingerprint linked to Richards. Police believe the real target was a family man called Mohammed Tanhai. He had become embroiled in a dispute with a businessman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, over a failed house sale.
The prosecution claimed Aamir's murder was a horribly botched contract killing. It said Hope and Richards had been paid £1,000 each by a businessman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, to kill a man over a collapsed property deal. They had mistaken 110 Ninian Road for another end-of-terrace house in a nearby street. The prosecution said the killers had been guilty not just of murder but "staggering incompetence" when they turned up on the wrong doorstep. Footage from a CCTV camera overlooking a park shown during the trial captured the moment when the hit may have been arranged. A man with two children was seen allegedly arranging the contract killing.
Aamir's family have said they will never recover from what happened that April afternoon in 2010. They have told how they had desperately wanted a son after having three daughters. Mrs Ahmad said Aamir had been "a gift, a blessing". She said he was "kind, humorous, fun-loving and caring" and could have been "brilliant". Remarkably, before the botched attack the killers went on a reconnaissance mission but then turned up at 110 Ninian Road instead of a similar-looking house in nearby Shirley Road.
Mr Ahmad said life had "lost its purpose". He keeps replaying the attack in his head as if it was a film. "Life has become very empty. All we were doing was for Aamir. It has made us very unsettled and unhappy." During the four-month trial at Swansea crown court both blamed each other and a "third man" but the jury clearly did not believe them.
He is still struggling to make sense of what happened: "Why should anyone come into my house and kill my boy?" Trial judge Mr Justice Royce adjourned sentencing but told Hope and Richards: "It is inevitable that there is a life sentence and it is inevitable that there will be a very substantial minimum term."
Afterwards Aamir's sister, Umbareen, 33, expressed relief. She said: "A house which was previously filled with love and laughter was brutally destroyed."
Mr Ahmad, who keeps replaying the attack in his head as if it were a film, said: "Why should anyone come into my house and kill my boy?"