A woman whose husband is accused of pushing her off Arthur’s Seat set up a code to alert cops if she was in danger, her mum told a trial.
Kashif Anwar, 29, is charged with murdering Fawziyah Javed and causing the death of her unborn child at the Edinburgh landmark.
Her mother Nighat Yasmin Javed told a jury how she was “very worried” about Kashif’s “violent” behaviour towards her daughter.
The court also heard from a hospital worker who said she was told by a patient she’d overheard Anwar telling Fawziyah: “If you died during childbirth that would be OK. I would be free.”
Fawziyah's 56-year-old mum recounted a conversation with Fawziyah where a code phrase was invented, adding: “I said if you feel that you are in danger, just text me ‘I like cream cakes’, and I will contact the police.”
Nighat said the move was due to the “abuse, the violence, the aggression, and coercive control” in the relationship.
She told the High Court in Edinburgh on Thursday that she and her and her daughter first met Anwar together at an opticians in Leeds, near their home in Pudsey, where he worked as an optical assistant.
The couple had an Islamic wedding on December 25 2020, but the trial heard concerns were raised within months.
Nighat said her daughter’s calls and texts were monitored by the accused, and between three or four months after the wedding her daughter wanted out of the marriage.
She said: “(Fawziyah) didn’t want to stay in a marriage like that, she wanted to leave.”
The court was played a recording of Fawziyah, who worked as an employment lawyer, phoning a legal firm for advice on getting a divorce.
Later the court heard from midwife Elizabeth Petty, 41, who was working at Leeds General Infirmary on August 23 2021, ten days before Fawziyah died.
Elizabeth told the court a patient had reported hearing a conversation between Anwar and his pregnant wife while she was on the antenatal ward.
The patient said she’d overheard Anwar telling Fawziyah: “If you died during childbirth that would be OK. I would be free.”
Elizabeth said Fawziyah had been “very upset and very scared” when she spoke to her about the allegation, and described her husband’s “coercive and controlling” behaviour.
Elizabeth said she offered to contact police, but Fawziyah declined.
Elizabeth added: “She wanted to think about it.”
Anwar, who denies the charges against him, is accused of murdering Fawziyah by pushing her off Arthur’s Seat where she suffered multiple blunt force trauma in a fall “from height” and died at the scene in Holyrood Park on September 2 2021
He is also accused of behaving in a threatening or abusive manner the previous day. He allegedly repeatedly shouted at his wife in the Residence Inn by Marriott hotel in the capital’s Quartermile.
The trial continues.
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