A TikTok influencer who murdered her mother’s toyboy lover and his friend in a high-speed car chase should have her sentence reduced, a court has heard.
Mahek Bukhari was jailed for a minimum of 31 years in September 2023 after she recruited ‘followers’ to ‘jump’ Saqib Hussain and Mohammed Hashim Ijazuddin before their deaths in February 2022.
Her mother, Ansreen, was also convicted and imprisoned for at least 26 years for plotting to kill Mr Hussain – after he blackmailed her and threatened to expose their three-year affair to her son and husband.
Mr Hussain had threatened to release sexually explicit material of Ansreen if she did not pay him the £3,000 he claimed to have spent on her during their secret romance, jurors at Leicester Crown Court heard during their trial.
Prosecutors said Mr Hussain and Mr Ijazuddin, both 21 and from Banbury in Oxfordshire, were ‘lured’ to ‘one last meeting’ with the Bukharis in a Tesco car park in Hamilton, Leicester, under the pretence of returning the money.
But the Bukharis and others – who were also convicted – ambushed the pair, pursuing Mr Ijazuddin’s Skoda along the A46 in two vehicles and deliberately ramming them off the road before they exploded in a fireball, the trial heard.
At the Court of Appeal today, barristers argued that Mahek’s sentence should be reduced as it did not reflect that Mr Hussain had demonstrated ‘controlling behaviour’ towards her mother in the hours before the killing.
Christopher Millington KC said this had left Mahek – who was 24 at the time of her sentencing – with a ‘wholly disproportionate’ sentence.
Mahek Bukhari (right) and her mother Ansreen (left) are pictured at Leicester Crown Court in April 2023
Mahek (right) had more than 135,000 followers on TikTok and had amassed more than 3million likes on her videos, on which her mother (left) would regularly feature
Mr Millington said Mr Hussain had threatened to release the sexually explicit material at ‘the end of a very long series’ of intimidating messages, which had a ‘direct evidential bearing’ on their decision to travel to Leicester to meet them.
He added: ‘None of this, we submit, was reflected in the fixing of the minimum term as it should have been.’
Mr Millington also said that the killing was ‘heat of the moment, rather than cold-blooded murder’.
He continued: ‘There was a plan, but it was not a plan to kill Saqib, or anyone else. It plainly involved the real possibility of violence, beating up perhaps, it was never considered to be a plan to kill or cause really serious bodily injury.’
Mr Millington told the hearing in London that Mahek’s age and ‘lack of maturity’ also should have led to a shorter sentence.
He concluded: ‘One has been left with a term that is wholly disproportionate.’
After the car chase began, Mr Hussain told police in a 999 call moments before his death that his and Mr Ijazuddin’s car was being ‘rammed off the road’ by assailants.
Analysis by forensic collision investigators showed that one of the cars involved in the chase reached speeds of up to 100mph.
Barristers for Mahek (above) have argued that her minimum 31-year sentence is ‘wholly disproportionate’
Ansreen (left) was convicted and imprisoned for at least 26 years for plotting to kill Mr Hussain – after he blackmailed her and threatened to expose their affair to her son and husband
When sentencing, Judge Timothy Spencer KC told Mahek that her ‘tawdry fame’ through her career as an influencer made her ‘utterly self-obsessed with a wholly unjustified sense of entitlement’.
At one point she had more than 135,000 followers on TikTok and had amassed more than 3million likes on her videos, on which her mother would regularly feature.
The mother and daughter both denied two counts of murder and two counts of manslaughter, but they were found guilty of double murder following a three-month trial.
Two others were also convicted of the murders, with a further three found guilty of two counts of manslaughter.
Collingwood Thompson KC, for the Crown Prosecution Service, acknowledged at the hearing today that blackmail by Mr Hussain ‘undoubtedly existed’ and was ‘relevant’, but that the sentence should not be reduced.
He said: ‘The fact is that the appellant did contemplate with her mother going to the police, and if they had gone to the police, none of this would have happened.
‘A conscious decision was made not to go to the police and deal with it in that way, and deal with it another way.’
He concluded: ‘This was a tough sentence, but it was not manifestly excessive.’
Lord Justice Warby, Mr Justice Lavender and Judge Sylvia De Bertodano will give their judgment in writing at a later date.
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