THE family of murdered jewellers Mohammed and Bilquis Karim say they will continue to live in fear, even though their parent's cold-blooded killers have been jailed.

And they have revealed that Mohammed, who was murdered alongside his wife at their shop in Church Street, Preston, in March, had repeatedly refused offers to return to his native Pakistan because he felt Britain was safer.

Christopher Gavin, 19, of Dorman Road, Preston, and Thomas O'Reilly, 17, were found guilty of the murders at Liverpool Crown Court last week, but the family say their anguish - and fear - will live on.

The family, from Little Harwood in Blackburn, issued a statement after sitting through the trial, saying: "Our innocent and law abiding parents have been brutally and savagely murdered for financial gain. "The violent murder of our mother and father was carried out by two youth who appear to be devoid of basic humanity and remorse. Our parents were the bedrock of our close knit and loving family, which has been destroyed for ever by premeditated acts of pure evil.

"Their deaths haunt our very existence and we must now learn to live in fear."

During the trial detectives revealed how the couple were repeatedly stabbed. Their bodies were discovered by their sons.

Tragically Mohammed, who ran a business in Blackburn as well as Preston, had refused repeated offers from friends for the couple to retire to Pakistan.

Son Shabir now runs the family's Blackburn auction room while his brother Shafiq looks after the Preston shop.

Shabir said: "My dad said violence was rife in Karachi, and he wasn't prepared to sacrifice the security he had established in England for that. And this is what that security did."

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