A mother and daughter who were murdered while they were on the phone to police were failed “beyond imagination”, their family have said.
Raneem Oudeh, 22, was killed by her estranged partner outside her mother’s home in Northdown Road, Solihull, shortly after midnight on 27 August 2018.
She was killed alongside her mother Khaola Saleem, 49, by Janbaz Tarin, then aged 21.
Ms Oudeh was on the phone to the police as they were murdered, her inquest heard.
Police were called out to Ms Oudeh’s house seven separate times in the weeks leading up to the tragic incident.
The night of the attack, officers were on the phone to Ms Oudeh, telling her that they would be in touch the next morning, when screaming was heard in the background of the call.
The words “he’s there, there, there” were heard before the women were both killed.
Nour Norris, Ms Saleem’s sister and Ms Oudeh’s aunt, told reporters that the family want to see “culture change at all levels of policing” following the conclusion of an inquest into the women’s deaths at Birmingham and Solihull Coroner’s Court.
Senior coroner Louise Hunt reportedly ruled on Friday that mistakes made by the force “materially contributed” to their deaths.
Speaking outside the court afterwards, Ms Norris said: “The failure of the West Midlands Police has lead to the death of our beloved sister, Khaola, and her daughter, Raneem.
“Both were murdered at the hands of the ex-husband of Raneem after a history of domestic abuse, coercive control and stalking – all of which police were aware of at the time.
“West Midlands Police have failed Khaola and Raneem beyond imagination. They had so many opportunities to save their lives right up until the end. Both were murdered while on the phone to police begging for help.”
Ms Norris thanked the jury, coroner and staff before describing the experience of hearing the evidence during the three-week inquest as a “horror movie”.
“We have revealed the truth but there is so much more yet to achieve,” she said. “We need changes to prevent future deaths through domestic abuse, we need culture change at all levels of policing.
“We ask for no more failings, no more dismissals of victims of domestic abuse. The legacy of Raneem and Khaola must be to ensure other victims get respect, support investigation and safeguarding that our loved ones did not get.”
During the inquest, Ms Norris told the 11-member jury about Tarin’s controlling behaviour towards Ms Oudeh.
She said Ms Oudeh fled the war in Syria to join her mother and family already living in the UK in 2014 where she enrolled at Solihull College, meeting Tarin in her English study group.
Ms Norris said Ms Oudeh went on to marry another man and had a child but the relationship failed before the birth and she ended feeling “very vulnerable”.
She said Tarin convinced them to rekindle their relationship in the summer of 2016 and they married in April 2017 after which he “became very controlling and became quite obsessive, that she was his belonging”.
The marriage started to break down again after Tarin travelled to Afghanistan at the end of 2017, where it emerged he had another wife and three children, with a fourth on the way.
In January 2018, Ms Oudeh told him the relationship was over but he started stalking her again and “would sleep in the car outside her house, for days”, Ms Norris said.
On one occasion, he sent Ms Norris an image on Facebook of his left arm, in which he had used a “razor” to carve Raneem’s name.
Ms Norris claimed her niece tried to be direct with Tarin, because her repeated calls to police led to little action, with visits from social workers leaving her “scared” they would remove her child.
“She called police a number of times before and... they didn’t really listen to her properly and didn’t take her seriously, or they blamed her”, she said.
“They’ll say to her ‘you’re wasting our time, you need to deal with him yourself, kick him out – you can’t call us all the time. Ask him to move out’.”
Tarin was found guilty of their murders in 2018 and ordered to serve a minimum of 32 years in prison. Mrs Justice Sue Carr described the murders as “significantly premeditated”.
West Midlands Police have been contacted for comment.
