Man guilty of murder over girlfriend van crush

A man has been found guilty of murdering his teenage girlfriend by crushing her to death against a lamp-post.

Lily Whitehouse, 19, suffered fatal chest injuries in the attack in Oldbury, West Midlands, on 5 November, hours after visiting her premature baby in an intensive care unit.

Mohammed Azim, 41, had denied using his van as a weapon, initially claiming she was hit by another vehicle in a hit-and-run, but was convicted at Wolverhampton Crown Court on Friday.

Judge Mr Justice Murray told Azim, of Tividale Road in Tipton, he would be sentenced on Monday afternoon after the jury returned their verdict by a majority of 10 to two after less than six hours of deliberation.

Members of Whitehouse's family in the public gallery sobbed as the verdict was returned.

The court was shown CCTV footage of Azim pushing the teenager with his vehicle before causing catastrophic chest injuries.

A Home Office pathologist found Whitehouse had suffered injuries predominantly to her right side while in an upright position, including a broken upper arm, fractured ribs, a laceration to her liver and traumatic injuries to her chest, which caused "severe bleeding" and led to her death.

Azim picked Whitehouse up and put her in his van while dialling 999 and claiming he had seen her being hit by a vehicle that did not stop at the scene.

When later interviewed by detectives, he claimed he had no memory of what had happened.

In his evidence to the court, Azim admitted he lied about the hit-and-run, claiming he panicked, and said he hit Whitehouse accidentally with his van as he tried to leave after dropping her off near her home.

Det Insp Nigel Box said: "Sadly in this case Lily's baby will never know her mother [and] Lily's family are absolutely devastated."

"I'm satisfied that my team carried out a thorough and detailed investigation into the circumstances that led to Lily's death, and this conviction will go some way to securing justice for Lily, and hopefully, at times, some peace for her family."

Box said at the scene of the attack Azim commented "I can't believe this has happened to me", and during his trial he explained what a profound impact the crime had on him.

"Mohammed Azim cares about himself.

"He could have stopped, he could have gone the other way if he were trying to get away from Lily, but he chose to drive his vehicle directly at her."

Previously, the court heard how the defendant had met Whitehouse when she was 16 or 17 after they exchanged numbers in West Bromwich High Street and began a relationship.

The victim had been "besotted" with Azim, the jury heard, but that the pair would fight a lot and the defendant would sometimes block the teenager's phone number when she tried to speak to him.

Jurors were told that Azim was not the father of Whitehouse's baby and he was "not happy" that she was pregnant. The victim would hide her bump with long clothing when she visited or stayed with him.

Whitehouse went into labour 10 weeks early after she fell over and cut her hand following an argument with Azim.

Whitehouse's aunt Melissa Wheeler told the jury: "The next day she had pains in her tummy and she said she didn't want to tell [Azim] because he was asleep and I said 'you need to call the hospital because you might be in early labour'."

Azim lied to doctors in custody, denying to them that he had a romantic relationship with the victim, that he needed an interpreter and that he could not have dropped Whitehouse off at her home in Oldbury that night because there were "drugs people after her".

Investigators found text messages between the defendant and Whitehouse in which she regularly begged Azim to see her and accused him of seeing other women.

Libby Higgs, a friend of the victim, told the jury the nature Whitehouse's relationship with the defendant consisted of verbal and physical abuse.

She said during her evidence: "She told me he used to say vile things to her, he used to punch her and do things to her like that and at points it would mark her arms."

"She asked him why he did that and he said it was play fighting. She said to me 'it's not play fighting because he's marking me and I've got bruises on my arms'.

"She had to wear jackets to hide them," Higgs said, adding that Whitehouse covered the bruises "because she didn't want people seeing".