Court hears of teens’ turbulent relationship that led to death of girl

AN “obsessive and possessive” teenager who stabbed to death an A-level student as she made her way to a party was sentenced to be detained for life.

Yahya Gul, 18, heard at the Old Bailey today he will serve a minimum of 12 years though if he was a month older at the time of the killing he would have served 25 years.

The court heard Gul attacked Aliza Mirza, 18, after she ended their turbulent relationship.

He armed himself with a knife after she agreed to meet him in Manor Park to talk about their future.

He stabbed her in the neck and chest and opened up her stomach, causing her internal organs to spill out of her body.

He left to die in the street, before meeting up with the friends, confessing to the killing and heading to a central London nightclub.

Gul, who was 17 at the time, later said she had “p***ed him off, sworn at his family and he wasn’t going to take it anymore”.

Aliza, who was in her final year at school, was found bleeding heavily around 7.30pm in Forest View Road by a member of the public.

Prosecutor John McGuinness QC said the witness described the area around her body as “saturated with blood”.

Aliza was rushed to Whipps Cross hospital where medical staff attempted to save her life, but she was pronounced dead at 8.40pm.

Gul, from Ilford, was arrested the following day, but refused to answer police questions over three days of interviews.

Mr McGuinness said: “They were teenagers, boyfriend and girlfriend, with a relationship that could properly be described as turbulent, very much an on-off relationship.” There was also evidence of past violence on Gul’s part.

The court heard Aliza had agreed to meet Gul on the night of her death after a flurry of text and phone calls.

He had text her 65 times that day and she had responded with 58 messages. And he had called her on 19 separate occasions.

She reluctantly agreed to meet him.

Mr McGuinness said the blade of the knife Gul used was found snapped and bent in the road.

Mr Mirza said the loss of his daughter had destroyed his family and described burying one of his children as “the most unnatural thing, one that no parent should ever have to experience”.

“I feel part of me is missing, I feel incomplete without our baby girl Aliza, we all do,” he wrote.

He said Aliza had been killed in the prime of her life in such a “savage, vicious and violent way”.

One of five children, Aliza was concentrating on completing her A-levels so that she could fulfil her dream of becoming a journalist and had told her dad: “One day you will see me on television.”

Aliza’s death has had a severe impact on her siblings.

He wrote: “There is not a day goes by where we don’t visit Aliza’s grave, talk to her, tell her how much we miss her. “To have to bury your child is the most unnatural thing, one that no parent should ever have to experience.”