A family who allegedly left an arranged marriage bride in a vegetative state after she ‘failed to meet expectations’ have been freed from jail.
Ambreen Fatima Sheikh was 30 when she was said to have been given the anti-diabetes drug glimepiride, which induced catastrophic brain injury, after she was brought to the UK from Pakistan following an arranged marriage.
She was also allegedly doused in a caustic substance, thought to be a cleaning fluid, as she was abused in the Huddersfield house in the days leading up to her admission to hospital on August 1, 2015.
It was initially thought Ms Sheikh, now 39, would die – but when her ventilator was turned off in hospital, she began to breathe for herself.
She has been left unaware of herself or her environment, without motor response or response to pain, and will never recover. She only survives by being fed through a tube and will eventually die as a consequence of what happened to her, although this may not happen for many years.
Husband Asgar Sheikh, 31, father-in-law Khalid Sheikh, 55, and mother-in-law Shabnam Sheikh, 52, were last year jailed for a total of 23 years.
They were found guilty of causing or allowing a vulnerable adult to suffer serious physical harm following a trial but now have been released from prison after the conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal.
The convictions for perverting the course of justice and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice were upheld.
Ambreen Fatima Sheikh was 30 when she was given the anti-diabetes drug glimepiride
Husband Asgar Sheikh pictured at Leeds Crown Court last year
Brother-in-law Shakalayne Sheilkh was originally handed a sentence of six months suspended for two years
Mother-in-law Shabnam Sheikh was originally jailed for seven years and nine months
Sister-in-law Shagufa Sheikh was handed a sentence of 18 months, suspended for two years
Father-in-law Khalid Sheikh was jailed for seven years and nine months last year
Sister-in-law Shagufa, 29, was handed a suspended sentence for causing or allowing a vulnerable adult to suffer serious physical harm. She also had her conviction overturned.
Judges found the case, heard at Leeds Crown Court, was ‘riddled with evidential difficulties’, The Sun reported.
Last year, the trial heard evidence that, soon after Ms Sheikh arrived in the UK, the family were not happy with her housework and chores, and Khalid Sheikh had suggested she should be sent back to Pakistan.
Concerns were raised by members of the extended family and two police officers carried out a welfare check in July but reported Ms Sheikh as being fit and well.
The judge said she attached ‘little weight to that assessment’ because Ms Sheikh spoke little English and her father-in-law was present during the visit.
She said she did not know who administered the corrosive substance, which left severe burns on Ms Sheikh’s lower back, bottom and right ear, and must have left her in considerable and lasting pain.
And she said she did not know who ‘tricked or forced’ her to take the glimpiride, which was prescribed to Shabnam Sheikh and is extremely dangerous to non-diabetics, even in small doses.
Although the family refused to give evidence, prosecutors suggested she was subjected to a ‘pattern of violence’ behind closed doors.
She was socially isolated and her sister, who also lived in Britain, was said to be threatened with death by Asgar when she came to visit.
Ambreen’s father-in-law Khalid Sheikh, 55, and mother-in-law Shabnam leaving court in 2023
Ambreen’s mother-in-law Shabnam Sheikh, left, and sister-in-law Shagufa Sheikh leaving court in October 2023
Ambreen’s husband Asgar Sheikh, right, with his brother Sakalyne Sheikh in October 2023 leaving court
The judge last year decided there was a two to three-day delay between Ms Sheikh falling unconscious and the family calling an ambulance, during which she became highly dehydrated and inhaled fluids which may have exacerbated her brain injury.
Even when the family called 999, they lied about what had happened to her, the judge said.
‘You would all have been aware of her pain and distress,’ she said.
‘It’s just not realistic to conclude that you did not all know of Ambreen’s predicament and her desperate need for emergency medical care.
‘You all also knew why she was in that condition.’
The court heard that Ms Sheikh is now being looked after in a palliative care setting and will not recover but could live for decades more.
She was in good health before her collapse and there is some evidence that she was a teacher in Pakistan, the court heard.
One witness said she was ‘intelligent, bright, ambitious and happy-go-lucky’ before she moved to the UK, and the judge said she was someone who would ‘light up a room’.
The judge said Ms Sheikh’s father is now dead and her mother is in poor health in Pakistan.
