A woman whose former husband became the first Briton convicted of keeping their spouse in domestic servitude has called for police to be better trained in understanding such crimes, saying she had to “literally beg” officers to take her away to a refuge.

Sumera Iram watched in court on Friday as Safraz Ahmed, a 34-year-old mechanic, was jailed for two years for beating and abusing his wife, and making her work up to 19 hours a day caring for his household.

Speaking subsequently to the Guardian, Iram, who came to the UK from Pakistan willingly in 2012 for an arranged marriage in which she expected she would be treated as an equal, criticised the sentence.



“He tortured me emotionally, physically, psychologically and he gets just two years,” the 29-year-old said, breaking down in tears as she described her experiences of the trial.

“It’s nothing. What kind of message does it send to other men who think they can treat their wives or girlfriends in this way? The penalty is not severe enough. What he did to me has been a life sentence. It’s very hard for me to move on, I can’t trust anyone. I can’t sleep without medication and I have panic attacks.”

Woolwich crown court heard that Iram lived in “an atmosphere of fear, constantly punctuated by violence” in the house in Charlton, south-east London, that she shared with Ahmed and his mother. Ahmed struck his wife, threw tins of cat food at her, sent streams of abusive and demeaning text messages, and once told her to jump in front of a vehicle or into a river, the court was told.

Iram said she remained baffled by Ahmed’s actions: “Why did he bring me here if he did not like me? Why did he ruin my life? He says he was pressurised by his family but he could have said something. I loved him and did everything he wanted. It’s no way to treat a human being.

“When he hit me I would beg him to send me back to Pakistan. But he said I don’t want to divorce you, I just want to keep you here, you are just for my mother. Then he told me why don’t you go and have an accident? That’s when I tried to kill myself.”

After her suicide attempt in August 2014, Iram was sent to her brother-in-law’s house and it was there that she found the courage to call police. She said, however, that when officers visited they seemed reluctant to intervene.

She said: “When the police came to the house I had to literally beg them to take me away. They tried to make me stay with my husband’s family, they thought I was safe there because I wasn’t with my husband. It was hard because I couldn’t speak English. They didn’t understand it wasn’t just him but the whole family who made me suffer.”

“Officers need to be better trained to understand the way different cultures work and the way people in some communities treat their wives. It’s not a religious problem, it’s a cultural problem.”

DS Pal Singh and DC Luke Bacon of the Metropolitan police, who investigated the case and brought Sarfraz to justice. Photograph: SWNS

Eventually police did take Iram to a refuge, and began to investigate her then-husband. He initially denied wrongdoing, but later pleaded guilty and was jailed for two years after admitting enforced domestic servitude. His mother Zarina, brother Viseem, and sister-in-law Deena Patel denied the same offence and were cleared after prosecutors offered no evidence against them.

Ahmed received a concurrent sentence of eight months for assault causing actual bodily harm for breaking Iram’s nose in February 2014. He was arrested following the incident. Officers, however, used Iram’s mother-in-law to interpret for her, and failed to spot Iram was acting under duress when she declined to press charges.

DS Pal Singh, who led the subsequent investigation, said that in retrospect she could have been removed from the home then, preventing six months of further abuse. Such errors were common in cases of so-called honour violence, he said.



“We need specialist units for the secondary investigations into honour-based violence in areas of large Asian demographics. This would undoubtedly help those Asian women who are effectively voiceless and do not enjoy the support of their families and communities.”



Last week, the head of the police watchdog said forces’ failure to fully understand such crimes meant women and children from minority ethnic backgrounds were being sent back to their abusers. Her Majesty’s chief inspector of constabulary, Tom Winsor, said family members had killed women because police had been unable to spot signs of such violence or fully understand the cultural issues surrounding it.

Iram, who has a masters degree in Islamic studies and has been learning English since September, received her final divorce papers last week and says she hopes to remain in the UK and train as a teacher. “I am a victim but I am also a survivor,” she said.

“Before I was weak but now I am strong. I would say to anyone living like I was in that place, speak out, don’t stay silent. If your husband treats you badly, he doesn’t deserve a second chance. The earlier you speak out the earlier you can be free.”