A TAXI driver who killed his heavily pregnant wife and dismembered her body was today beginning a life sentence for murder.

Javed Iqbal, 26, of Milner Street, Burnley showed no emotion as he was led away at Preston Crown Court yesterday.

In passing sentence, Judge Mr Justice Kay said: "You have committed the most dreadful and wicked act. You have killed your wife and unborn child and these are dreadful things to do. It would be wrong to conclude it was a premeditated attack but you quite deliberately killed her."

He cut up her body with an axe and a hacksaw and dumped the parts in the Ribble Valley. The police were alerted after he set the parts on fire.

Reporter JEREMY RICHARDS looks at the background to the horrific crime.

PLUMES of smoke spiralling into the air at the foot of Pendle Hill sparked one of the bloodiest murder hunts ever seen in East Lancashire.

Detectives admit that parts of Shaheeda Bi's dismembered body could have laid undiscovered for a long time if her killer, husband Javed Iqbal, had not made the mistake of setting fire to them.

Instead eagle-eyed passers-by, fearing the flames could quickly spread among the tinder dry grass caused by last summer's heatwave, alerted the fire brigade who quickly discovered the burning remains of the heavily-pregnant woman's body in a series of grisly finds.

And it was help from the public that provided detectives with vital clues, early on in the investigation, which helped detectives track her murderer.

Iqbal murdered his wife, who was eight months pregnant, after she refused to let his girlfriend live with them.

The girlfriend finished the relationship because of pressure from her family, who had threatened to send her to Pakistan. A final argument with his wife ended with him strangling her and chopping up her body. What was to become a massive police operation involving up to 80 officers began innocently enough.

A local farmer spotted Iqbal walking down an embankment just off the A59 Clitheroe by-pass, near the Barrow link road. He spotted a grass fire and thought Iqbal had been burning some rubbish.

"The primary concern at that time was the threat of fire because it was a hot summer and the grass was tinder dry," explained Detective Inspector Clive Tattum, head of Colne CID which covers the Ribble Valley.

"If he hadn't have set the parts of the body on fire they wouldn't have been found as quickly."

He added: "What made him want to cut up her body and then set it alight we don't know."

Firefighters called to deal with the blaze made the grim discovery of a human head in the smouldering grass and alerted the police.

The witness, a member of the local farming community, provided vital clues that helped police track Iqbal down.

"He gave us the make of the car he was using and parts of the number plate," said DI Tattum. "He also described Iqbal to us."

Officers later found an axe, a large hacksaw and a piece of cloth Iqbal had wrapped his wife's head in at the scene. A petrol can was found at another location.

As they were dampening down at the scene firefighters saw smoke rising in the distance from Black Hill picnic site on the road to Sabden, where a severed left leg was found.

And so it went on through the afternoon and early evening, with members of the public and an off-duty police officer investigating small fires across the Ribble Valley, and coming across the gruesome sight of severed limbs and a torso.

While police launched their murder inquiry at the A59, Iqbal was using his white Toyota Carina taxi to carry parts of his wife's body to different locations and burning them.

Iqbal gave himself up after being "talked in" by a police officer on his mobile telephone.

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