Fatal Wolverhampton stabbing sparks call for more vigilance

The UK Border Agency, health bosses, police and council staff were called on to intervene numerous times amid concerns that Behnam Shiraziyan posed a risk to his family.

He stabbed his Iranian Kurdish wife Shadi Afraziyan, aged 36, 18 times on December 29, 2011, at their home in Newhampton Road West in Whitmore Reans, Wolverhampton.

But authorities including the UK Border Agency had known since shortly after their arrival in the UK three years earlier that he was showing signs of depression.

In a 123-page report, the Safer Wolverhampton Partnership admitted that authorities could have predicted that Mrs Afraziyan or her son were at risk of serious injury or harm due to Shiraziyan's mental illness. He was declared unfit to plead when he appeared in court in January.

The report revealed there were other occasions when fears about his mental health were raised. The family arrived from Iran in 2008 and were temporarily housed in Birmingham before settling in Wolverhampton.

Shiraziyan had threatened to kill himself, his wife and his child and set a GP surgery alight in 2009. And Mrs Afraziyan had also told the UKBA in early 2011 that 'he hurts himself, he hurts us. He is not normal. This is difficult for me and my son'.

She also complained to the Community Mental Health Team in March of that year that her husband had threatened to kill her and her son with a knife and that they had fled their house 'in fear for their own safety'.

Shiraziyan was taken to a psychiatric hospital and his wife told housing authorities that she did not want her husband to move to a new home with her. She later changed her mind despite advice that he should have only supervised contact with their son.

The report made 24 recommendations including insisting that agencies review their internal training and show they are 'fit for purpose'. The council's chief executive Simon Warren said:

"The commissioning of this independent review, which examines the circumstances of this very tragic case in forensic detail, is a mark of our determination to learn from our involvement in the lives of these vulnerable family members.

"It is clear that all three members of this family were vulnerable people, living in a foreign country, removed from close relatives and without a good command of the English language.

"It is the review's conclusions that give us most pause for thought: her death was preventable and a serious injury or harm to either her or her child was predictable."

The different authorities involved come under the collective title of Safer Wolverhampton Partnership.

Asked if anyone had been sacked or disciplined as a result of the case, Mr Warren said: "The purpose of the review is for us to consider how, as a partnership of agencies, we might have worked more effectively.

"It's not the function of the review to discipline individuals – that is a matter for individual organisations."

He added: "Safer Wolverhampton Partnership has taken on board all 24 of the review's recommendations.

"Most of them have been addressed already and we continue to work together to ensure those recommendations are acted upon.

"In doing so, we have kept to the fore the horrific facts of this case. A young boy must grow up without his mother. A family is destroyed.

"The underlying issue for the whole partnership centres on how agencies work together and how they communicate with each other."