A “self-obsessed” TikTok influencer has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 31 years and eight months for her part in the murder of two men who died in a fireball when their car was rammed off the road during a high-speed chase outside Leicester.
Mahek Bukhari, 24, blew a kiss to her father as she was jailed alongside her mother, Ansreen Bukhari, who was sentenced to a minimum term of 26 years and nine months for the double murder.
A three-month trial at Leicester crown court heard that the pair were part of a group who lured the victims to a Tesco car park in February last year before pursuing them at speeds of up to 100mph.
Saqib Hussain and Mohammed Hashim Ijazuddin, both 21, from Banbury in Oxfordshire, died instantly when their car was rammed off the road, hit a tree and went up in flames.
Co-defendants Rekhan Karwan, 29, and Raees Jamal, 23, were also jailed for life, with minimum terms of 26 years and 10 months and 31 years respectively, for two counts of murder.
Natasha Akhtar, 23, was jailed for 11 years and eight months, and Ameer Jamal, 28, and Sanaf Gulamustafa, 23, were jailed for 14 years and eight months and 14 years and nine months respectively for two counts of manslaughter.
Passing sentence on Friday afternoon, the judge Timothy Spencer KC said Mahek Bukhari’s “tawdry fame” through her career as an influencer had made her “utterly self-obsessed”.
“TikTok and Instagram are at the heart of this case,” he said. “That is the reason you, Mahek, dropped out of university. Had you not done so, you would now be a young graduate with your whole life ahead of you. Now, you constrain yourself to prison for all of your best years.”
He said Ansreen Bukhari’s “head was turned” by the “perceived glamour” of the influencer world. “A world far removed from the life you lived until then as a mother and housewife in Stoke-on-Trent,” he said, that led to her starting an affair with Hussain.
The trial heard that Hussain reacted badly when Ansreen tried to end their relationship, threatening to send sexually explicit photos to her husband if she did not repay him £3,000 he claimed he had spent on her.
In the early hours of 11 February last year, Mahek arranged to meet Hussain at a car park in Leicester under the pretence of giving him the money, and arrived as part of a group of eight people. Many were wearing face coverings and at least one person was carrying a weapon.
When Hussain and his close friend Ijazuddin, who had offered to give him a lift, arrived at the car park they quickly fled the scene, and they were pursued by the group at high speed, leading to the fatal crash.
In a 999 call made by Hussain in the moments before his death, he said: “There’s guys following me. They’ve got balaclavas on. They’re trying to ram me off the road. They’re trying to kill me – I’m going to die.”
Spencer described the call as “one of the most moving and distressing pieces of evidence ever heard in a criminal court”. He said Ijazuddin was “totally innocent” and “found himself sucked into a deadly maelstrom caused by all of you in the dock”.
In a statement read in court, Ijazuddin’s father, Sikandar Hayat, said: “My heart has been ripped out and none of us will be the same again. All we have left is memories of our beloved son. They left him and his friend to burn in a furnace of hell.”
Hussain’s father, Sajad Hussain, said his son “brought light into the lives of everyone who knew him” and the “whole family has been torn apart” by his death.
Patrick Upward KC, defending Ansreen Bukhari, said she did not know four of the other defendants and claimed that “although plans had clearly been made, Ansreen was not preparing to take part in them”. He said: “She will have to spend the rest of her life living in the shadow of her shame.”
Defending Mahek Bukhari, Christopher Millington KC said “decisions were taken and intentions were formed on the spur of the moment” during the car journey, and “the evidence does not establish an intention to kill”.
Spencer said none of the defendants called for help after the crash and they were concerned only with trying to “avoid responsibility”. “So whilst remorse is expressed by some, it is little and late and has a hollow ring,” he said.
