Man jailed for beating wife in WhatsApp video call to Pakistani relatives

LONDON: A man has been imprisoned after he livestreamed himself beating his wife and hitting her with a shoe while saying ‘I’m going to kill her today’ in a WhatsApp video call to relatives in Pakistan.

Rahman Ullah, 38, according to Daily Mail, is an Uber driver. The report says the man hit his wife, 34, with the heel of his shoe until she was left with two black eyes in the video streamed to relatives in Pakistan.

He held on to a kitchen knife throughout the attack and mimicked stabbing her with it during the brutal assault at their home in, Croydon, south London, on May 9.

The dad-of-two was jailed for 14 months after pleading guilty to assault causing actual bodily harm to his estranged wife, who he had split with a year before the attack. Prosecutor Faye Rolfe told the court the couple had been married for thirteen years until splitting 12 months before her ex-husband beat her.

When the man arrived to drive their daughter to school he tricked the girl into handing over the front door key and let himself in. ‘His wife was shocked to see him and he was on his phone, making a WhatsApp video call to his mother and brother,’ Ms Rolfe told the court. ‘While holding the phone in selfie-style he said “I’m going to kill her today”.’

She added: ‘He hit her with the heel of his shoe ten to fifteen times.’ Raja fled the flat barefoot, but only made it to the communal hallway where he grabbed her by the hair and dragged her back down the hallway where she hit her head on the floor, the court heard.

‘The fact that it was filmed makes it more humiliating for the victim.’ In her statement, the victim said: ‘I’ve not been sleeping well. I’m aching all over and have a bruise to my head, where I was dragged by the hair. ‘I’m scared to sleep in case my husband gets back in the house to kill me. ‘I took a week off work because I did not want to be seen in that state.’

The man initially told police his wife was the aggressor and attacked him until eventually admitting his guilt.