Judge labels Mohammed Ali Khan 'cruel and unremorseful'

Jailing Mohammed Ali Khan for life with a minimum 22 years, Judge Graham Knowles KC said he rejected Khan’s evidence that he acted in self defence when he attacked 50-year-old David Read in his flat in Leamington Road, Blackburn in the early hours of June 7.

Khan was found guilty of Mr Read’s murder on Monday (December 18), after a jury returned a unanimous verdict following just 45 minutes of deliberations.

READ MORE: Mohammed Ali Khan jailed for life for murdering David Read

Sentencing Khan at Preston Crown Court on Wednesday (December 20), Judge Knowles said: “David Read was a peaceable man. He did no violence to you. He did not threaten you. You did not fear him.

"You murdered him in his own home. You did it brutally, with shocking violence.

“He was 50. His parents, Mary and David Read, in their moving personal statements speak of the pain and grief you have inflicted on them by murdering their son.

“Their love for David is evident. You bereaved their two other sons of their brother. You left him to be found dead by his mother.

“She says, ‘on the day I found David my life changed beyond words’.

“The horror of those moments, of seeing and touching him, plays on loop in her mind.

“She suffers nightmares and flashbacks of a graphic and profoundly distressing nature.

“So bad was the damage you did to him that his parents could not view his body in his coffin.

David Read (Image: Lancs Police)

“What Mrs Read saw in his flat that morning was therefore her last sight of him on earth. Her pain adds to her husband’s grief.

“Mr and Mrs Read have behaved with perfect dignity and restraint throughout the trial.

“David, their son, was an artist, a painter. He swam with his father.

“David Read lived alone in a flat in Blackburn.

“He had the misfortune to have a mental illness, paranoid schizophrenia, but it was generally well controlled by medication. His care co-ordinator described him as a very articulate, intelligent man.

“He had been using illegal drugs for some time despite his parents’ best efforts to protect him.

“You too were a drug user. You were also a drug dealer. The extent of which you and David Read used drugs together, and the extent to which if at all you supplied him with drugs is unclear.

“He told the community mental health team openly about his debts to a dealer, a dealer who was not you.

“He told them on their last visit that he had taken cocaine. It was obvious to them that he had. Cocaine was in his system when he died.

“On June 6 this year, the day before you murdered David Read, in the morning, you were, as a witness put it, off your head on drugs.

“You saw David Read on and off through the day. A little after midnight you returned to his flat with a takeaway for two.

“You and he were alone there. You remained in his flat until 9am. He was not to leave it alive.

“You woke the man in the flat above at about 2am and again an hour later, when you were shouting angrily at David Read.

“At 3.40am you used David’s phone to call your mother. Not long after, the neighbour above heard the outer door of the flat bang, then you saying, ‘I’m sorry David’.

“You left the flat four hours later and skulked through the back alleyways to dispose of the evidence that incriminated you. That included a claw hammer.

“A pair of bloody scissors was to be found in his flat.

“Examination of his flat and of his body made plain that you had bludgeoned him to death in a protracted and ferocious attack.

“You had attacked him with at least two weapons, the scissors and the hammer.

“You struck well over 100 blows with them.

“You stabbed David Read many times to the top of his head with the scissors.

“You used both sides of the head of the hammer, the circular side and the claw.

“Having done all that appalling damage, you washed his blood from you and changed your clothes.

“By the time you were arrested two days later you had rid yourself of your bloodstained trainers and deleted David Read as a contact on your phone.

“You denied murder when you were arrested.

“You said very little in interview, but did claim it was David Read’s fault.

“When you were charged you denied intent.

“In three calls to a relative, you never once suggested self-defence or anything like it.

“Instead, you said, ‘it’s all his fault’.

“You added that you killed him, or murdered him (the word you spoke could bear either meaning in the language you spoke in) and that ‘he stole the stuff worth £700’.

“You said, ‘I said to you before send me to Pakistan…I said to mum as well, send me to Pakistan straight away’.

“You had plainly intended to flee justice, but did not have the means.

“Your evidence of self-defence was rightly rejected by the jury.

“You are 35. You have no previous convictions for violence but I cannot wholly overlook the fact you were convicted for having an offensive weapon nine years ago, and had a knife in the form of a pen with a blade when you were caught dealing heroin and crack cocaine in 2017. You went to prison on that occasion.

“There is only one sentence for murder, and that is life imprisonment.

“There are a number of aggravating features.

“You killed in him in his own home.

“You used two weapons. You acted with utter brutality. You continued your attack in four locations across two rooms.

“You were on drugs at the time.

“You concealed the evidence and sought to hide your tracks.

“You asked your family to help you flee the country, although nothing came of that.

“I am sure you intended to kill David Read. I am sure of that given the use of two weapons, the number and range of the blows, the repetition and severity of the blows to his head with a hammer, and all the circumstances.

“I reject the submission you were in any way provoked.

“You did not act to any extent in self-defence, or in fear of violence. I am sure of that. I reject your evidence on the point having heard your trial.

“Your evidence was invented by you to try and tally with the evidence against you.

“Why you did what you did, and exactly what happened, only you know and you chose not to say but to lie.

“You have no remorse. Your apology to the Reads as you turned to return to the dock at the end of your evidence was a calculated piece of theatre, intended to win the jury over.

“It was cruel and dishonest.

“Had there been any doubt about your lack of remorse and your concern for yourself, the telephone calls you made from the police station and prison would destroy it.

“They contain a further extraordinary feature.

“As Mr Hamilton KC has pointed out today, you said to your sister, ‘in Syria, non-believers are killing Muslims every day. A non-believer has been killed, so what is the big deal?’

“I make it clear that there is no evidence that any such thinking motivated this murder. The relevance of what you said then about David Read is further to disprove remorse.”

Khan, who was also on bail at the time he committed murder, for possession with intent to supply class A drugs, was jailed for life with a minimum term of 22 years, less 190 days he has spent on remand