Life for man who butchered family

Miah was a failed asylum seeker

A chef has been jailed for life for hacking to death his wife, her young daughter and her brother with a kitchen knife.

Badshu Miah, 30, pleaded guilty to the three murders which took place on 5 September 2002 at a flat in Bethnal Green, east London.

He was given three life sentences at Inner London Crown Court on Tuesday.

Nurjahan Khatun, 31, her brother Kamal Uddin, 35, and her daughter Fahmeda Ahmed, four, were found dead after neighbours on the 19th floor of the Sivill House tower block heard screaming.

The court heard Miah was a failed asylum seeker who had come to the UK from Bangladesh in 1996 and met his wife four years later.

Jeremy Donne QC, prosecuting, said: "He had no legitimate residency or citizenship in this country which was a source of irritation between him and his wife."

Arranged marriage

Miah worked as a tandoori chef and was known by another name "most probably to disguise his identity because of his irregular immigration status", Mr Donne said.

Ms Khatun arrived in the UK with her family at the age of 18 in 1989.

She married the father of her child, but they divorced after their daughter was born.

Miah and Ms Khatun had an arranged marriage as the defendant needed a wife with British citizenship so he could stay in the UK.

That man, he is going to kill me

Nurjahan Khatun

They lived with her disabled brother.

Mr Donne said the relationship was good until Miah began accusing his wife of having affairs

The day before the family were killed neighbours heard Ms Khatun shouting "help me, help me" and crying.

Mr Donne told the court when Ms Khatun was taken to the Royal London Hospital for treatment she told her other brother Abdul Murad: "that man, he is going to kill me".