The mother of a three-year-old acid attack victim has told a court how her ex-husband threatened to kill her and their children.
Her evidence came after jurors at Worcester Crown Court heard the child screamed ‘I hurt’ over and over again after the corrosive substance hit his face and arm last July.
She said her ex told her he knew somebody who would murder them – and even warned police would never be able to find their bodies.
Giving evidence via video link she told jurors the pair married in 2006 and that she broke up with him in 2012.
But they got back together after her ex phoned her up ‘crying down the phone’ and ‘begged’ her to take him back.
She then left him a second time four years later, after he threatened to murder them in an Islamic country.
A court sketch yesterday showing (left to right) Norbert Pulko, Saied Hussini, the father of the boy (who cannot be identified), Martina Badiova, Adam Cech, Jabar Paktia and Jan Dudi
The Afghan mother, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said: ‘Me and my husband separated in October 2012 – I left the family home and the children came with me.
‘We went to a refuge and I took some clothes for me and the children. We stayed there for three days. My husband kept calling my family, and me as well.
‘He kept crying and begging me to come back to him and said he wouldn’t hurt me again and couldn’t live without me or the children.
‘When I came back he said that I embarrassed him in front of their family and wasn’t crying for me but for the children.
‘I felt very disappoint and gutted, I felt stupid as he told me he loved me.
‘He also said he asked an imam whether, in our religion, he was allowed to kill me and the children because we left him for three days.
‘The imam told him he wasn’t allowed to do that and instead to say a prayer.
‘He said to me he has two options, to either kill me and children in this country or take us to an Islamic country where he would be able to do anything to us.
‘He said he knew somebody that could do something to us and the police would not find our bodies.’
She launched divorce proceedings in 2016, to which he reacted badly.
She added: ‘He couldn’t accept the separation and his first reaction was to call my family and put emotional pressure on them and he even went around to their home.
‘My husband made an application for a child arrangement order – he wanted the children to live with him.
‘I didn’t want them to live with him. The court made an order to for him to see children in supervision sessions.
‘The children did sometimes attend the sessions with scrapes or bruises.
‘My oldest son had a small scratch to his eye and my husband took a picture of the injury and made my son feel uncomfortable.
‘My son told me he got the scratch from playing with friends at school.
‘My youngest son had attended the session with a scratch on his lower back when he slipped from his chair which I explained to the supervisor.
‘The second occasion he attended the session with an injury is when he was swimming he slipped and got a bruise on his elbow and I told the supervisor.
‘I would tell the supervisor of these injuries because my husband would take a picture of them and show them to the courts to say I was a bad mother or I caused these injuries.’
Adam Cech, 27, pictured left, is accused of carrying out the attack. As a result the little boy suffered acid burns to his left forearm and his forehead which were treated in hospital. Jabar Paktia, pictured right, is also an alleged accomplice
The court also heard after being arrested, on suspicion of the conspiracy to throw acid on the child for which he is now on trial, the father told police during interview that he would ‘never do such a thing’ to his child.
Prosecutor Jonathan Rees said: ‘The father said he knew nothing about the incident until a police officer told him about it at the time of his arrest.
‘He denied any involvement in what happened to his son and said he would not do such a thing to his child.
‘He did not know if this was a random attack on his son or by someone who wanted to hurt him.’
Earlier today the court heard that the three year old screamed ‘I hurt’ over and over again after being attacked.
The youngster, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, suffered serious burns to his face and arm at the Home Bargains store in Worcester on July 21 last year, during a parental custody dispute triggered by his father.
The 40-year-old father is charged with conspiring to unlawfully or maliciously cast or throw sulphuric acid on or at the boy between June 1 and July 22, with intent to burn, maim, disfigure or disable the minor, or do grievous bodily harm to him.
The Crown alleged the taxi driver, stung by his wife walking out on him and taking the children in April 2016, ‘enlisted others’ to attack the youngster in a bid to win more contact with the child.
Prosecutor Jonathan Rees QC, opening the case, said: ‘We say the evidence suggests that, in an effort to ensure his application was successful, he was willing to manufacture evidence of injuries to his children in an attempt to show that his wife was unable properly to care for them – in other words she was an unfit mother.’
Jan Dudi, 25, of Birmingham, appeared before Worcester Crown Court today. Norbert Pulko, 22, pictured right, is from Slovakia but lives in London and is also an alleged accomplice
Facing the same charge are Adam Cech, 27, Martina Badiova, 22, and Jan Dudi, 25, both from Birmingham; Norbert Pulko, 22, of Sutherland Road, London; Saied Hussini, 42, from London; and Jabar Paktia, 42, from Wolverhampton.
They all deny the allegation.
Continuing his opening on Wednesday, Mr Rees told Worcester Crown Court the incident was caught on Home Bargains’ CCTV, before showing the footage to jurors.
The mother of the boy had driven to the store with her children at about 2pm to buy a party gift.
Roadside CCTV established she was followed by a Vauxhall Vectra, allegedly containing Cech, Dudi and Pulko.
At 2.13pm she and the children went inside the store, followed shortly after by the three men, with shop CCTV showing Cech approaching the victim who is standing with his brother.
Both youngsters are gazing at a brightly coloured display of plastic footballs at the end of an aisle.
The victim can be seen pointing up at the footballs, with his sibling doing practice kicks, as a man in a white T-shirt, identified without dispute in court as Cech, walks past the victim with his arm extended and an object in his hand.
As Cech exits the frame, the victim can be seen looking quickly back towards him before running to his mother nearby.
Mr Rees told jurors: ‘What you have just seen is that person in a white T-shirt – you can just catch the moment where the arm is extended.
‘That really is the hub of this case. That is the acid attack. It is over in a split second.
‘You have, in shot, Mr Cech – there’s no dispute of that – extending his arm, out towards the child.’
The boy can then be seen in distress, being comforted by his mother and siblings.
Mr Rees said: ‘His mother was a short distance away as the attack is carried out, and the sister heard the victim scream out, ‘I hurt, I hurt, I hurt’.
‘He was shouting and crying and ran towards his mother holding his left arm. He showed his mother his arm but, at first, she could not see anything.
‘His eyes were closed and his mother was concerned that something may have spilt on him.
‘She went to check the area near the football display but could not see anything on which he could have hurt himself.’
He added: ‘The three males left the store within moments of each other.’
The incident happened at this Home Bargains store in Worcester on July 21 last year
Jabar Paktia is an alleged accomplice and lives in Wolverhampton
The boy suffered a 10cm burn to his left forearm, and a 3cm burn on his forehead, which needed specialist hospital treatment.
The youngster has since made ‘a good recovery’, Mr Rees added.
The Crown’s QC earlier told jurors there had been an ‘aborted attempt’, eight days before the attack, near a school.
Prosecutors said an eagle-eyed neighbour, concerned at two men and a woman hanging around in a black Vauxhall Astra near the school on July 13, took photos alleged to be of Hussini, Pulko and Badiova.
One of the men was wearing ‘clear plastic gloves’.
Mr Rees said it is alleged that man was the ‘tattooed’ Pulko, with Hussini in the driver’s seat, and Badiova walking ‘back and forth’ between the car and school, acting as a ‘lookout’.
Mr Rees said a CCTV camera on the side of a shop then captured Pulko at 3.19pm approaching the mother and her children as they left school, ‘with an object in his left hand’.
‘As they approached the entrance to the car park, Pulko was almost within touching distance of the child, who was holding his mother’s hand,’ said Mr Rees.
‘As the mother and her children walked into the car park, Pulko stops following them and crosses the road.
‘The prosecution suggest that the plan was for Mr Pulko to squirt acid on the child but he pulled out or aborted because there were too many people around.’
The Crown said the child’s father was ‘updated’ by phone two minutes later about the attempt by Pulko and Paktia.
Six men and a woman are charged over the incident at the store on this retail park in Worcester
The neighbour’s sighting was reported to police but officers ‘weren’t able to attend immediately before the Astra and its three occupants left, as it was not deemed to be an emergency’.
Describing the hours leading up to the July 21 attack, Mr Rees said a witness spotted what is alleged to have been Cech, Dudi and Pulko, by a Vauxhall Vectra near the mother’s address, acting ‘weird’.
‘He (the witness) saw one of the men pour liquid from a bottle on to the other two men’s hands, before pouring it on his own hands,’ said Mr Rees.
‘The prosecution suggest the apparent washing of the hands episode would be consistent with the handling of some sort of corrosive fluid, such as acid.’
During this time, Paktia, back in Wolverhampton, was in telephone contact with Pulko and the child’s father and was ‘at the hub of things, co-ordinating’.
The trial, estimated to last six weeks, will hear evidence from the victim’s mother later today.
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