Police ‘stopped dad trying to kill Redbridge daughter’

AN ATTEMPTED “honour killing” was averted by police after a Pakistani woman refused to enter into an arranged marriage with her cousin.

Detectives were applauded on Wednesday for their actions after the dad of the young Redbridge woman made threats to kill her.

She received 22 text messages from her father and two brothers, all menacing in content and some with threats to end her life.

Her dad then attended her place of work to carry out his threat, police believe, after she refused to wed her cousin in November 2009.

Four officers, including Det Con Jamie Da’Bell, involved in protecting the woman in the months after the threats were made were among 20 people handed police commendations at a ceremony in Wanstead Golf Club, Overton Drive, Wanstead.

The father and his family were removed from the UK at the end of last year after detectives discovered the family was protected from prosecution owing to their diplomatic status.

In March this year, after the woman was re-located to a new safe house, her brother attempted to get into the UK but was refused entry by the Borders Agency.

Other acts commended during last week’s ceremony included:

• The prosecution of two men after �42,000 of criminal damage caused by the daubing of graffiti tags in South Woodford.

• The lifesaving actions of two police officers who stopped a man jumping from a bridge above the A406, near Grove Road, South Woodford, on December 9.

• The bravery of a pair of officers who saved an elderly woman from a house fire in Barkingside in January.

• Two members of the public, including Kevan Gough, who stopped a mugger in his tracks as he tried to snatch a woman’s phone and iPod in High Road, Ilford, in June.