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Acid attack accused 'threatened to kill wife and children'

The mother of a three-year-old boy targeted in an acid attack, allegedly plotted by his own father, told jurors her husband threatened to kill her and the children.

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Accused (left to right) Norbert Pulko, Saied Hussini, father of three year boy who cannot be named, Martina Badiova, Adam Cech, Jabar Paktia and Jan Dudi Picture: Elizabeth Cook/PA Wire

The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said the 40-year-old had asked an imam "if he is allowed to kill me and the children".

He is one of seven people, including a man from Wolverhampton, accused of conspiring together to cast or throw sulphuric acid on the man's own son, in an attack in Home Bargains in Worcester on July 21 last year.

Worcester acid attack

Giving evidence at Worcester Crown Court via a video link on Wednesday, the woman said the couple had an arranged marriage in early 2006 which took place in Pakistan.

Her husband moved back to the UK and she followed eight months later, with the pair living together in the West Midlands and having three children together.

But in 2012 she decided to leave "with just a few clothes" and the children, after trouble in the marriage, she said.

Her husband, who also cannot be named for legal reasons, then called her "begging and crying", urging her to return, she told the court.

"He was crying and begging me to come back and saying he would be nice to me and he wouldn't hurt me again and that he couldn't live without the children," she said.

But when she did return home after three days, her spouse had changed his tune, she told jurors.

"He started blaming me and saying 'you left me and I was humiliated in front of all these people and the families'," she said.

"He said he wasn't crying because of me, but only because of the children, (and that) he does not want to be separated from them.

"I felt very disappointed, gutted, and stupid. Because when he told me he loved me and cared about me, I came back - then he changed his words.

"I felt I should not be back there."

She told the court: "He said he'd been to an imam and said, because his wife had left him for three days, is he allowed to kill me?

"He asked the imam, 'Am I allowed to kill her and the children' and he told me the imam said 'You're not allowed to do that'.

"The imam told him to do his prayers instead."

She said her husband had also threatened to have the children killed abroad if she left again.

Asked by prosecuting barrister Jonathan Rees QC if he had ever threatened the youngsters, she replied: "He told me, he has two options.

"He could kill me and the children in this country, and that he doesn't care about the police and jail.

"Second, he might take us out the country, to an Islamic country, and do anything to us, and nobody would ask about us."

She said: "He told me he knows somebody who could do something for him and not even the police would find their bodies."

The woman described how she left her husband again, taking the children, in 2016.

Calling her spouse from a room at an emergency women's refuge that night, she said she told him she would not be returning.

Divorce and family court proceedings followed, with her husband allowed to see his children once a fortnight in a supervised contact centre, jurors heard.

The children's mother told the court she would have to tell the centre's staff about any "scrapes and bumps" her youngsters' had, saying her husband would use them against her in the family court if she did not.

On one such visit, another of her children had a "small scratch" from playing with friends at school, she said.

"He (the father) took a picture of this injury and made our son feel uncomfortable," she said.

"He was trying to take a picture, then he would take it to court.

"Every time they had a minor injury, I would have to let the supervisor know it had happened."

The trial continues.

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