Thirty-one-year-old Fawziyah Javed and her pregnant child perished in a horrific accident on Arthur’s Seat in September 2021 after her husband, Kashif Anwar, forced them over the edge.
Fawziyah, a lawyer, had been collecting evidence of Anwar’s abusive behaviour leading up to the murder. She even devised a secret code with her mother, Nighat Yasmin Javed, to signal for help from the police.
Nighat Yasmin Javed expressed growing concerns for her daughter’s safety following her marriage to Anwar in December 2020, citing instances of abuse, violence, aggression, and coercive control. She instructed Fawziyah to text her the phrase “I feel like cream cakes” if she ever felt endangered.
A Channel 4 documentary titled “The Push” shed light on the substantial evidence collected by Fawziyah, which played a pivotal role in securing the murder conviction. The documentary was granted permission to film the trial at the High Court in Edinburgh.
Lead prosecutor Alex Prentice KC revealed that Fawziyah had secretly recorded phone calls of Anwar threatening her and had reported his abusive behaviour to the police twice, with the second report made just days before the fatal incident in Edinburgh.
Anwar, denying the murder charges, was found guilty in April. Some of Fawziyah’s last words, heard by a passerby as she lay critically injured, were a plea to keep her husband away, revealing the truth of her tragic fate.
Fawziyah Javed’s brave actions in collecting evidence and seeking help, even in the face of danger, highlight the importance of addressing domestic abuse and the impact it can have on individuals and families.
