21 May 2009

Mother blames police failure for girl's murder

Mother blames police failure for girl's murder

The mother of a teenage schoolgirl today accused police of missing chance after chance to save her from being murdered by an obsessed former boyfriend who made repeated threats to kill her.

Arsema Dawit was stabbed 30 times close to her home near Waterloo station in London by Thomas Nugusse on 2 June last year.

Arsema, 15, and Nugusse, 22, had met at church and dated, but after the teenager ended the relationship her former boyfriend made repeated threats which were reported to the police in the weeks before her death.

Nugusse was today convicted of the killing. After his arrest he made two suicide attempts which left him brain damaged and unable to enter a plea.

Arsema was attacked in a lift as she returned home from school and todayher mother, Tsehaynesh Medhane, blamed police failings for contributing to her daughter's death. The Independent Police Complaints Commission said it will investigate the family's complaint.

Outside the court Medhane said: "I feel that Arsema's life could have been saved if the police authorities had taken action when I approached them before she died."

Six weeks before the killing, Arsema and her mother went to Kennington police station in south London to report threats by Nugusse and an assault on the schoolgirl in a McDonald's restaurant and demand her attacker be arrested.

She told a friend Nugusse had said to her: "Do you love me, because if you don't love me, I will kill you."

While there Nugusse sent a text to Arsema which was shown to police.

Medhane said: "I phoned him and asked him where he was and he replied on the phone that he would kill her."

Nugusse told the mother: "How many times are you going to accompany her? I will kill her one day."

CCTV footage from the day of the murder shows Nugusse stalking Arsema as she walked home from school, and following her across a zebra crossing as she neared the flats where she lived.

Medhane told the judge in a statement: "My life has changed forever. I have lost hope. My daughter is constantly in my mind. She was my precious child and there are no words to express how I feel."

Sarah Whitehouse, prosecuting, said shortly after Arsema was killed, Nugusse made a 999 call in which he confessed to the killing, telling the operator: "I had a fight with my girlfriend and I killed my girlfriend." He added that he could not live without her and did not have "anything to live for".

Whitehouse said Nugusse came to Britain from Eritrea when he was 17.

Nugusse was ordered to be detained in hospital indefinitely.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/may/20/arsema-dawit-murder/print

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