A driver who killed a “Good Samaritan” when he ploughed into the middle of a wedding brawl has been found guilty of murder.
Hassan Jhangur, 25, hit five people with his Seat Ibiza when he arrived at his sister’s wedding reception, where a fight had broken out between the two families.
Sheffield Crown Court heard Jhangur first drove into the father of the rival Khan family, who was standing in the street, throwing him over the vehicle’s bonnet.
He then crashed into a group of four people, including Chris Marriott, 46, who was out for a post-Christmas walk with his wife and two sons and had stopped to help one of Jhangur’s sisters as she was lying in the road.
Jurors heard devout Christian Mr Marriott was killed and the three others were injured, including off-duty midwife Alison Norris and Jhangur’s own mother and sister.
The defendant then got out of the car and stabbed his new brother-in-law, Hasan Khan, several times.
The court heard he later told officers at the police station: “That’s why you don’t mess with the Jhangurs.”
Jhangur, of Whiteways Road, Sheffield, denied the murder and manslaughter of Mr Marriott but pleaded guilty to causing Mr Marriott’s death by dangerous driving.
After 18 hours of deliberations, on Wednesday a jury found him guilty of the more serious offence of murder by a majority of 10 to two.
He was cleared of attempting to murder Hasan Khan, but guilty of wounding, and convicted of four charges of causing grievous bodily harm with intent to Alison Norris, Ambreen Jhangur, Nafeesa Jhangur and Riasat Khan.
His father, Mohammed Jhangur, 57, of Whiteways Road, Sheffield, was found guilty of perverting the course of justice after he concealed a knife.
Prosecutor Jason Pitter KC told the jury at the opening of the trial that Jhangur was guilty of murder because he intended “at the very least to cause really serious harm” when he used his car as a weapon.
He said that although Jhangur’s target may have been the Khan family, “the law says your intentions can be transferred from one person to another, even if he did not intend to hit that particular person”.
Mr Pitter said the “public spirit” of Mr Marriott and Ms Norris “brought them unwittingly into the midst of a family dispute”, which had spilled out into the street in the Burngreave area of Sheffield on December 27 2023.
Mr Pitter said a wedding between Amaani Jhangur and Hasan Khan, which had taken place that morning, “appears to have been at the heart of the tension”.
He told jurors an issue arose over the timing and location of the wedding and escalated to Amaani falling out with her own mother and sisters, and none of her family ultimately attended the wedding at the mosque.
The court heard that when Amaani was at the Khan family home in College Court later, her mother Ambreen Jhangur and sister Nafeesa Jhangur arrived, and an increasingly “unpleasant” argument in the street escalated into violence, and led to Nafeesa Jhangur being rendered unconscious.
Mr Marriott, who was out with his family on a post-Christmas walk, saw Nafessa Jhangur lying in the road and decided, “fatefully”, to see whether he could help, while his wife and children returned home.
Ms Norris, who was also out walking with her partner and children, did the same thing.
The court heard Jhangur had been told about his sister being injured, and arrived at the scene in a Seat Ibiza, driving into Hasan Khan’s father, Riasat Khan, who was standing in the middle of the road talking to a 999 call operator.
The Seat then hit a group of four people in the road – Nafeesa Jhangur, Ambreen Jhangur, Ms Norris and Mr Marriott – before coming to a stop in a nearby front garden.
Mr Marriott was wedged completely underneath the car and showed no signs of life when emergency services tipped the vehicle to get to him.
Mr Pitter said Jhangur got out of the car while the engine was still running and stabbed Hasan Khan multiple times to the left side of his head and to his chest, with a knife he had taken with him.
In his speech to the jury, Richard Thyne KC, defending, said that although the “unintended consequences” of Jhangur’s dangerous driving were “terrible”, “it was neither murder nor was it manslaughter”.
Mr Justice Morris told Jhangur, who was convicted of murder following a retrial, that he faces a life sentence.
He will be jailed on a date to be set.
The judge thanked those in the public gallery, including widow Bryony Marriott and her family, for the “quiet dignity and courtesy you have shown throughout the trial”.
She did not visibly react when the guilty verdict was returned.
