'No-one should live with a monster': Wife stabbed eight times on street speaks out as husband jailed for 24 years
An abusive husband who stabbed his wife eight times on the street in front their children has been locked up for 24 years.
Mohammed Farooq's wife Nusarat has described how her husband kept knives under the bed, choked her and brainwashed her in a decade of abuse that ended with the brutal attack last year.
Nusarat's life was saved thanks to the help of four passers-by who leapt in to punch her husband on his body and head and and hit him with a bicycle wheel to get him to stop.
One year on and her children still cry at the sight of a car that resembles their father's, believing it is him returning to try and kill their mother again.
Farooq, 55 and of Whatley Road, Handsworth, was sentenced to 24 years behind bars at Birmingham Crown Court on Friday after he admitted attempted murder. He was also given a restraining order and an extended sentence, meaning he’ll be subject to recall for five years after his sentence ends.
It comes after he ambushed his wife just off the busy High Street in Erdington in April last year, stabbing her eight times in the head, neck, chest and arms.
Farooq had tracked Nusarat down after she plucked up the courage to flee his abuse and seek shelter at a refuge with her children.
Nusarat, 36, has now spoken out in a bid to encourage other domestic abuse victims to seek help and leave their abusive partners.
She said: "No-one should live with a monster like Farooq. They will end up killing you.
"He is a very dangerous man and should spend the rest of his days in prison."
Nusarat married Farooq after moving to the UK from Pakistan, but quickly began feeling isolated and trapped by his violent and controlling behaviour.
“I had no friends, I didn’t know the laws.
"He brainwashed me, I believed if I told anyone he would have my children taken away.
"For nine-and-a-half years he made my life a misery. He terrorised me day and night."
Nusarat, who can’t speak English and has had her story translated for her by her support worker, recalled how Farooq would use her traditional neckpiece to choke her and would keep large knives under the bed, which he used to show her and threaten her with.
Recalling one encounter, she said: “He dragged me by my hair to the window and told me he would throw me out of it and bury me outside and no-one would care.
“There is no honour in killing, our religion Islam gives us a right to have a divorce and be separated."
She left her husband after he began directing her aggression directly towards her boys, who are aged under 10 and she says have been left scarred for life.
"Even to this day, if they see a car which resembles their father’s, they will start crying in the street, thinking he is coming to kill me," she explained.
"What kind of father does that to his children? I just wanted to leave him.
"He tried to kill me because I made a decision to keep my children safe. He is no father, he is a monster."
Pc Lisa Monahan, from the public protection unit at West Midlands Police, said: "Although Nusarat and her children now have a fresh start, she still lives in fear but wants to put the horrible ordeal behind her.
"Hopefully, the honesty and bravery that Nusarat showed in sharing her traumatic story can inspire others in similar situations to seek the help they need."
Anyone who has suffered domestic abuse can visit www.west-midlands.police.uk/your-options/domestic-abuse for support.
