Mujahid Arshid, 33, and Vincent Tappu, 28, are on trial over the death of Celine Dookhran
An ‘utterly wicked and obsessed’ builder raped a young make-up artist before slitting her throat and hiding her body in a padlocked freezer, a court heard today.
Builder Mujahid Arshid, 33, and his employee Vincent Tappu, 28, allegedly kidnapped Celine Dookhran, 20, and another victim on July 19 last year.
The pair stuffed socks into the women’s mouths and bound their hands and feet before Ashid put them in the boot of a car and took them to a £1.5 million six-bedroom south west London house he was working on, the Old Bailey heard.
Two days before, Arshid had installed a chest-high deep freezer into the utility room.
Armed with a lock knife, Arshid then allegedly raped each woman in turn in an upstairs bedroom.
The second woman had her throat cut but duped him into believing they could be together, in a desperate bid for survival.
She then raised the alarm from hospital which led to the discovery of Miss Dookhran’s body.
Opening the prosecution case, Crispin Aylett QC warned jurors: ‘The evidence that gives rise to those charges is, I am afraid, simply horrific. You will have to steel yourselves for what is to come.’
He said Arshid became ‘obsessed’ with Miss Dookhran, who worked in Barclay’s bank in Sutton, but knew that she was having a sexual relationship with her boyfriend, a Libyan Muslim.
Realising she was ‘beyond his clutches’, he resolved if he could not have her then ‘nobody else would’, it was said.
The body of make-up artist Celine Dookhran was discovered in a £1.5million property just miles from her home in South West London
Vincent Tappu and Mujahid Arshid are depicted here in a court sketch at from the Old Bailey today
Mujahid Arshid, 33, was said to have bound and gagged kidnapped two victims and had sex with them both in a £1.5 million house he was working on. Pictured, police at the scene
Arshid plotted to kidnap both women for about three weeks before, the prosecutor said.
He told the court: ‘Thereafter, and it is as bizarre as it is terrible, he intended to rape them before murdering them and disposing of their bodies.
‘He considered either putting them in acid, in order that their bodies might dissolve, or else concealing them in a deep freezer.’
The night before the murder a family meeting took place, the court heard.
Mr Aylett said: ‘Pressure was brought to bear on Celine and her boyfriend to end their relationship.
‘And although they agreed to stop seeing each other, no one could have been sure that they meant to keep their word, and it may well be that they didn’t.’
Mr Aylett said: ‘Would she fall into line or might she run away? The defendant put his plan into action.
‘It would have been difficult for Mujahid Arshid to overpower both young women on his own. And so he needed an accomplice.’
Tappu had been working for Arshid on a part-time basis.
Mr Aylett said: ‘On Tappu’s own account, he had at that time been short of money.’
They made an arrangement the day before, and early on July 19 Tappu drove to a side street near where Miss Dookhran lived, it was said.
The two men, both wearing balaclavas and gloves, burst into her room, the jury was told.
Mr Aylett said: ‘The two women had socks stuffed into their mouths. Their mouths were covered in tape.
‘Their hands and feet were tied together. Each of them was wrapped in a builder’s dust sheet.’
Arshid scooped up clothes and phones, to give the ‘entirely false’ impression Miss Dookhran had run away, it was claimed.
He also grabbed large quantities of underwear, ‘no doubt consistent with his sexual fascination’ with her, the court was told.
Prosecutor Crispin Aylett, QC, warned the jury that they would have to prepare themselves to deal with the terrible facts of the case surrounding Ms Dookhran’s murder
Mr Aylett said: ‘The two women were taken from the house wrapped in dust sheets, and placed in the boot of the first defendant’s pick up truck.’
Tappu played no further part, jurors were told.
A month before, the owner of a six-bed detached home between Wimbledon and Kingston gave Arshid a set of keys so he could carry out work.
Mr Aylett said: ‘The house in fact had been unoccupied for several months and was likely to remain so for several months more.’
He drove the women to the house, and tied them to the pipes in the utility room while he was armed with a lock knife, the prosecutor said.
He allegedly took the second victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, upstairs and raped her, before doing the same thing to Miss Dookhran.
Mr Aylett said: ‘In the bathroom of that house, he cut Celine’s throat, most likely with the lock knife.
‘With her mouth still stuffed with a sock, Celine died from the combined effect of the restriction of her airwaves and the blood that she lost.’
The court heard Arshid then took the second woman, in her 20s, upstairs and cut her throat, and told her ‘she would be dead within ten minutes’.
He added: ‘It must have been the defendant’s intention to murder both women and to conceal their bodies in the deep freezer of an unoccupied house.
‘That way, it might be many many months before anyone thought to open the freezer that had been put in the kitchen of that house.
‘He put Celine’s body into the deep freezer and locked it with the padlock he must have brought with him.’
But the second woman survived and was later taken to hospital, where she gave the police details who then found the house.
Mr Aylett said: ‘A police officer arrived with a crowbar. The lock was broken and inside was the body of Celine Dookhran.
‘She had obviously been dead for some considerable time.’
Arshid fled to Folkestone, Kent where he was arrested the same night in a hotel, still possessing the padlock key.
Arshid, of no fixed address, denies murder, attempted murder, two counts of kidnap, two counts of rape, two counts of conspiracy to falsely imprison another, possessing a firearm with intent – a Taser.
He also denies one count of sexual assault, and one count of assault by penetration, involving the second woman between November 2008 and November 2010.
Tappu, from Acton in west London, denies two counts of kidnap, two counts of conspiracy to falsely imprison another, and one count of possessing a firearm with intent.
The trial continues.
Sorry we are not currently accepting comments on this article.