Deaf woman ‘beaten and left to die in street by raver nicknamed Nasty’

A raver nicknamed Nasty left a profoundly deaf woman to die in the street after throwing her out of a car and punching her for ‘annoying’ him on a night out, the Old Bailey was told.

Duane Owusu, 36, had been to a rave when he and his friends invited stranger Zahwa Mukhtar, 27, into their already crowded Mercedes on August 16 last year.

Owusu had spent the evening at a rave and was travelling with a group of people he knew from Dagenham, jurors were told.

Ms Mukhtar had been out by herself and come across the group ‘by chance’ outside a pub in Stoke Newington, north London, near her home, the court heard.

Outlining the ‘senseless killing of a vulnerable young woman’, prosecutor Henrietta Paget KC said: ‘The occupants of the vehicle had been drinking and taking drugs, Ms Mukhtar included.

‘You will hear evidence that she was behaving erratically within the car, flirting with the boys and picking fights with the girls. Nobody knew her, and it appears that her behaviour was causing increasing annoyance.’

When Ms Mukhtar began recording a video on her phone and the defendant ordered the driver to stop the car, the court heard.

Ms Paget said: ‘Opening the rear door, he threw out Ms Mukhtar’s phone and then ejected her bodily from the car, so that she landed on her backside on the pavement.

‘Getting out after her, he aimed two kicks at her face as she sat on the ground. One of the female members of the group got out to try to stop the attack but he swung her aside.

‘Ms Mukhtar by this stage had managed to get to her feet and was pleading with Mr Owusu to stop, but he punched her, hard, to the neck, knocking her to the ground where she lay motionless.’

Jurors were told that Ms Mukhtar fell so hard that she suffered a fractured skull and fatal brain injury.

Rather than helping her, the defendant allegedly shouted at the others to get back in the car which was then driven away.

Ms Paget told the jury: ‘And so it was that Ms Mukhtar was left to die.’

Jurors were shown CCTV footage of the attack outside a care home in Chadwell Heath, east London.

The footage showed Ms Mukhtar, wearing a long white dress, being attacked before falling to the floor and lying motionless on the driveway.

After the fatal attack on Ms Mukhtar, a voice can be heard on the footage shouting: ‘Get in the car now.’

A male voice was allegedly heard to say: ‘Leave her bro. I don’t even care about her, let’s just go.’

A female voice is then allegedly heard shouting: ‘Someone help her. We can’t leave her like that.’

Ms Mukhtar was described as a ‘bright, bubbly, enthusiastic’ woman who aspired to become an accountant and worked as a finance assistant at the Young Vic Theatre in Waterloo.

She was profoundly deaf, having lost her hearing after contracting meningitis at the age of three, but coped well and was adept at lip-reading and used British sign language, jurors were told.

Ms Mukhtar, who came from a traditional family background, wanted to live like any other young person in their 20s and enjoyed socialising, food and travel, they heard.

Owusu, of Dagenham, denies murder and an alternative charge of manslaughter.

The trial continues.

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