Husband found guilty of wounding wife with violent intent in drugs row
A husband from Birmingham inflicted a deep knife wound on his pregnant wife and throttled her after she hid his drugs stash.
Haroon Ashraf, 24, from Bordesley Green attacked his wife Neelam, who was nine weeks pregnant, within a few feet of their one-year-old during an argument about missing bags of cannabis.
In the three-day trial at Birmingham Crown Court, jurors heard that the couple had argued over Ashraf’s use of the drug and his drinking leading up to the attack.
Neelam, Ashraf’s wife of three years, objected to her husband smoking the drug and when she found bags of cannabis on February 8 she hid them.
The argument surrounding the drugs developed on February 10 when Neelam suffered a three-hour attack at the hands of her husband. In an attempt to force her to disclose the drugs’ location he sprayed aftershave in her face, slapped her, pulled her hair and strangled her.
Five days later, Neelam still refused to return the drugs and on the morning of February 15, having spent a night drinking, Ashraf attacked his wife with the knife.
Neelam raised her arm to protect her face from the knife attack, leaving her with a deep wound on her arm.
Paul Whitfield, prosecutor, told the Jury: “The consequences could have been permanently disfiguring.
“He approached her and slashed at her.
“If she had not put her arm up she would have looked very different today.”
Giving evidence against her husband, Neelam said: “I was really angry because I never knew he would do something like that. I have my son to think about, anything could have happened that day.”
The husband, charged with wounding with intent and assault by beating, has refuted both allegations.
He denied the assault on February 10 and said that the knife wound had occurred when Neelam attacked him and stabbed herself in the arm.
Ashram, now of Gilberthorpe Street, Rotherham, was released on bail until September 19.
His Honour Judge Murray Creed who presided over the trial warned Ashraf that a custodial sentence was almost inevitable
