Abida Karim grave (? to 24th September 2020)

The near-soulless cemetery on the outskirts of Leeds was difficult to find. Driving through a semi-rural setting I saw a sign saying simply “Cemetery” and followed the road. It must be a new road as the Sat-Nav showed me driving through a field. A dead-end road, no church or spire. A new cemetery on which had probably been an arable field. I was here to find a murder victim buried in the Muslim section. Two council bored workers in a truck asked if I was lost. I said I was after “the murder victim” and they said they’d buried her. Another bored man from the council came to join the search for the grave (they were waiting for a funeral - they'd dug a grave with a JCB and would soon be filling it in.)

Here I am at the grave of a mum who left seven children. In September 2020 Abida Karim was at home with her violent husband in Hovingham Terrace, Harehills. They has been married for 21 years but the decades had been strewn with domestic abuse. That evening after the children went to bed she was brutally murdered aged 39.

In their bedroom husband Sajid Pervez - a taxi driver - struck his wife over the head and in the face with a hammer at least 15 times before sawing her neck with a kitchen knife he had bought days earlier. The judge at Leeds Crown Court said Pervez must serve at least 22 years behind bars. The court heard Abida had been dead for a few hours when police and paramedics were called to her home on the morning of 24th September 2020. The jury heard how she was a "soft, gentle, generous, loving, caring mother, wife and woman" who "dedicated her whole life to her husband and seven children". She had never disclosed to her family, friends or community the violence she had suffered from in private.

Pervez had taken half a gram of cocaine before the attack (he regularly took cocaine and cannabis.) He had probably planned the murder as he’d hidden tools in his bedroom. He'd probably heard Abida was planning to divorce him. She'd recently return from her dad’s funeral in Pakistan and told family members she wanted a divorce. The prospect of a shameful divorce probably pushed her husband from abuser to murderer.

Since the tragedy happened eldest daughter Ria has legally fostered her six younger siblings. Of the murder she said, “I just knew this day would come. It was not just my mum getting murdered. We lost our dad with the choice he made.”

Perhaps the family found it too painful to visit as the grave is full of weeds. Some Asian men came over and enquired what me and the council workers were doing but one of the council chaps told it was council business, he could not say anything and they should "go away." I was advised to leave quickly too as a funeral of an Indian man was about to take place and cars would probably block the car park. I had a coffee and a sandwich in the motorhome and then found the council worker was right: suddenly a hearse and a procession of cars started arriving, scores of mourners spewing out of them. The council workers said it may be two hours before the crowd have gone and they could fill in the hole.

I could see Karim's grave from my front seat. I focussed on it, did a salute and left.