On 2 September 2021 Fawziyah Javed and her husband Kashif Anwar were on a break in Edinburgh. 17 weeks pregnant Fawziyah was planning to leave her husband. He took her on a walk up Arthur’s Seat and pushed her off a cliff up there. She and her unborn child died as he claimed she slipped. Controlling and abusive and determined not to let her leave Anwar was convicted of murder in a Scottish Court in 2023.
This is the story of Fawziyah Javed and her unborn child.
On 2 September 2021 Fawziyah Javed and her husband Kashif Anwar were on a break in Edinburgh. 17 weeks pregnant Fawziyah was planning to leave her husband. He took her on a walk up Arthur’s Seat and pushed her off a cliff up there. She and her unborn child died as he claimed she slipped. Controlling and abusive and determined not to let her leave Anwar was convicted of murder in a Scottish Court in 2023.
This is the story of Fawziyah Javed and her unborn child.
Hi there and welcome to Killer in the Family podcast. I'm your host, claire Laxen. Today's episode so 25, which is really exciting is about a story that's in the news a lot in the UK at the moment. Not only is there a channel for documentary about it it's called the Push but there's also a campaign called Fallen Women that was launched by a campaign group, killed Women, that is exploring this story. More on that later, and before we delve in, I want to let you know that we have a very, very exciting special guest for the pod episode next week. I recorded the interview with her last week on International Women's Day, which felt very apt, so please keep an eye on my socials at Killer in the Family pod for more information. So, without further ado, let's get into today's episode. This is going to be a tough lesson.
Speaker 1:
On the 2nd of September 2021, forzia Javad and her husband, kashi Fanua, were on a break in Edinburgh 17 weeks pregnant. Forzia was planning to leave her husband. He took her on a walk up Arthur's seat and pushed her off a cliff. Up there. She and her unborn child died. As he claimed, she slipped Controlling and abusive and determined not to let her leave. Fanua was convicted of murder in a Scottish court in 2023. This is the story Forzia Javad and her unborn child. So, as I said, the story of Forzia has been in the news a lot recently.
Speaker 1:
I really recommend watching the Channel 4 documentary, the Purge, if you can. I know it's UK specific, but it features interviews with Forzia's family and friends and really helps you get to know her. I've linked to all the sources for this episode in the notes, as well as links to information and support if you need it. So Forzia Javad was born in Leeds in the North England on the 4th of September 1989. So I grew up very close to Leeds and also went to university there, so I know the area really well. She was an only child and had a very close relationship with her mum. Yasmin. Her mum in the push documentary talked about how much they love spending time together and how her and Forzia travelled to places she could never have imagined. In the documentary, her mum described her as extrovert and outgoing and how everyone fell in love with her and apparently Forzia decided at the age of eight that she wanted to be a lawyer. She'd always have a sense of fairness. So Forzia had a private education and she went on to study law at the University of Sheffield and graduated in 2011. She then became a solicitor in Leeds, specialising in employment law, and her mum in the documentary talks about how much Forzia loved her job and just helping people. She also volunteered for a couple of charities too, so really dedicated her time to helping people. Her colleague, ingrid, described Forzia as a wonderwoman. She talks in the push documentary about how smart and beautiful and charismatic she was.
Speaker 1:
Now Forzia met Anwar when he was an optical assistant in Leeds. Yasmin, her mum, had actually gone into this shop to buy some glasses and Forzia was with her. She later bumped into Anwar again in Leeds and they eventually got together. Now Yasmin talks about how Anwar came across as quite caring and genuine. Both him and Forzia were practising Muslims and they seemed really happy together. They got engaged in the summer of 2020 and married on the 25th of December 2020. And then Forzia and Anwar went to live with his parents. So on the push documentary, which showed footage of the trial of Anwar, yasmin talked in court about how Anwar seemed to have a bit of a temper and was controlling as they continued their relationship and started their marriage, and Ingrid, forzia's colleague, said that sometimes when they went out after she got married, forzia was taking more pictures than usual and thought she was sending them to someone sort of like someone was checking up on her or wanting to know what she was doing. And in court, yasmin talked about how, after they got married, manuel made Forzia delete her Facebook account, how he also started blocking male members of family from her phone and he also used her phone to transfer £12,000 from her bank account to his when she was asleep. Now we've talked a lot about coercive control and some of the behaviours and patterns of behaviours that we can see in this and, as we know, restricting access to social media, isolating from friends and families and economic abuse are all signs of coercive control and clearly Anwar was an abusive and controlling husband.
Speaker 1:
During the trial, which is shown on the push so trials in Scotland can be recorded. They actually played conversations between Forzia and Anwar which took place in early 2021, which Forzia had started recording. So in these recordings, which are obviously really difficult for Forzia's family to hear during the trial, she can be heard. Forzia can be heard saying quote I'm not coming back tomorrow. Anwar is then heard saying quote who the fuck do you think you are? You are a disease in everyone's life. The sooner you're dead or the sooner you're out of my life, it will be better.
Speaker 1:
In another clip played during the trial, forzia is heard asking does she not get a say in the marriage? Anwar says in reply quote no, you can't. You're married now. You're being a bitch. I'm telling you as your husband. You're coming back tomorrow. Stop challenging me. Who do you think you are? You're not a man. I'll tell you one thing you end this and I'll ruin your life. I mean it. So those are some really sort of strong evidence and you know literally from his own mouth evidence of his abusive and controlling behavior towards Forzia.
Speaker 1:
There are also reports of verbal abuse from Anwar towards Forzia early in her pregnancy, when she was actually in hospital, and, according to the independent newspaper, anwar was overheard in hospital saying to Forzia that it would be okay if she died in childbirth because then he would be free. The trial heard from another patient who was in hospital and she was in the bed next to Forzia, who overheard this and overheard Anwar calling Forzia a bitch and saying how he wished he'd never married her. Now team, if this is not coercive control and very, very dangerous, I don't know what is Now. Forzia, with the support of her mum, yasmin and her family, reported the abuse she received to the police twice and in the push documentary you can see the body warm camera footage from one of these reports, where Forzia is with her mum telling the officer about a time when Anwar was punching her but he'd put a pillow over her face. The officer talks with Forzia and flags that this is abuse and that she can press charges. Both times that she speaks to the police, forzia doesn't want to take anything further. She did, however, put in some safety processes with her mum Yasmin. Her mum talked about how she established a code with her daughter in an attempt to keep her safe and she told Forzia that if she ever felt in danger, she could text her eye like cream cakes and her mum would call the police. And, as we heard earlier, forzia also started secretly recording her conversations and interactions with Anwar. So she was probably thinking like a solicitor, you know, getting that evidence, getting recordings down, making sure that the police noted that she had reported abuse. So it feels like she was really started to build build that evidence base as a sort of solicitor, ready to leave him.
Speaker 1:
And in summer 2021, when Forzia was pregnant with Anwar's child. She was. She knew that she was in an abusive and controlling marriage and she wanted to leave her marriage, and the only reason that she hadn't so far, according to her mum, was to get that £12,000 back that he'd stolen from her. So when Anwar suggested a break to Edinburgh after a family party they were attending, forzia knew then that she would be telling him that she was leaving him. According to Forzia's mum quote the plan was they were coming back on the Saturday, which was Forzia's birthday. She was going to say to him I'm going home. I'm going to go home because my mum's got some presents for me, and then she wasn't going to go back. Forzia never saw her 32nd birthday.
Speaker 1:
On the evening of 2nd September 2021, people walking up Arthur's seat in Edinburgh saw a panicked man saying that his wife had fallen. They called the police and tried to help find her. This man was Kashif Anwar, and he said that they both slipped, but she'd fallen, even though he tried to grab her. Fawzia had fallen about 15 meters, which is about 50 feet down Arthur's seat, but was still alive when she was found. Before we go any further, let's talk about Arthur's seat. Some might be familiar with it through the book and Netflix program one day. But Arthur's seat is an extinct volcano in Edinburgh at the end of the Royal Mile. It's really popular with walkers and hikers and rises to about 250 meters. Now one of my avid listeners, rebs, who lives near it, says that it can be dangerous up there with crags. That can be really dangerous if you're walking on them and apparently there is a route that they advise tourists to walk on to avoid the really scary bits of Arthur's seat. So thanks for the local intel there, rebs. So you know it's not without the realms of possibility that someone could fall from Arthur's seat.
Speaker 1:
However, it soon became clear what happened to Fawzia was no accident. Before the trip to Edinburgh, anwar had actually told friends that he really was. He was really keen to visit Arthur's seat. Fawzia, however, was not sure she was a pretty. She was pretty afraid of heights and wasn't keen, and remember that she's nearly four months pregnant. So probably, you know, walking up a hill wasn't on her top of her to-do list. Despite this, and presumably because Anwar decided what they did on that day, after a lunch at Wagamomers and a walk around Edinburgh, they went up to Arthur's seat around 7 30 pm, so back to later on that night. So while Passersby called the police to report that Anwar had said his wife has fallen, heiker actually arrived and found Fawzia still alive. She said she said Fawzia could hear her husband and said to her the Heiker quote. She told me not to let her husband near her and that he had pushed her Soon after that, police officer Rhiannon Clutton arrived at the scene as well with Fawzia.
Speaker 1:
She said quote, she was writhing in pain but she was able to speak to me when I asked her questions. She said she asked the woman what had happened and said her response was he pushed me. She said that Fawzia had said her husband had pushed her as she had tried to end the relationship. Fawzia then asked quote, am I going to die? Is my baby going to die? She then went into cardiac arrest and Fawzia Javert was pronounced dead at the scene at 10 18 pm. Her unborn child also died. The assistant coroner, john Hobson later on gave her cause of death as complications of multiple injuries after a fall from height.
Speaker 1:
Kashi Vanua was arrested in charge with Fawzia's murder and the murder of her unborn child four days later, on the 6th of September 2021, just two days after Fawzia's birthday. His trial was held in Scotland in April 2023 and, as I mentioned earlier, the documentary the Push features footage from the trial, and that's because the rules in Scotland are different to those in England and Wales, so, under Scottish rules, criminal trials can be recorded for the purposes of documentary making. There are some strict guidelines and also a few caveats. These include the jury must never be shown on camera, witnesses can request to have their voice altered or be shown from the neck down to avoid identification, and also, in the case of sentencing being filmed, only the judge may be shown, not the accused, the council or public benches. So there are a few caveats to trials being recorded in Scotland, but because they are allowed to be recorded for documentary purposes, we can see that we can see the trial through the push documentary and for me, being able to see what happened during the trial has really helped me understand the motivation of Anwar in killing his wife and unborn baby During the trial, and on the push documentary you see various witnesses talking about their interactions with Forzia and Anwar, including the police woman who spoke to her on Arthur's seat and the woman in the hospital bed next to her when Anwar was verbally abusing Forzia.
Speaker 1:
You also hear from Forzia's mum, yasmin, who speaks so eloquently about her daughter and the abuse in the relationship. She obviously did all she could to try and keep her safe. Now Anwar decided not to take the stand, so the only thing you actually hear from him in the trial is those phone recordings that we spoke about earlier. You also have his defence team pointing at CCTV images of Forzia and Anwar and Edinburgh saying things like they're holding hands, aren't they? And seemingly trying to imply that they were in a happy relationship. Now, anyone who knows about trying to leave an abusive and controlling relationship and we know the point at which a woman's leaves is the most dangerous knows that sometimes you have to play along. You risk, assess you safety, plan the best that you know how that might include looking like on CCTV that you're holding hands. It doesn't mean that there is no coercive control or abuse there.
Speaker 1:
Now, through the trial and hearing from Forzia's family and friends in the push documentary really shows that Anwar basically had an issue with a woman and a man's role in a marriage. He was clear that he was the man and that Forzia should do what he says, and she did not want that. She was an independent woman, she had her own career, she was doing her own charity work. She had her own life. And when Yasmin Forzia's mum appeared on Newsnight she also said about Anwar quote he used to say to Forzia we don't have divorces in our family. We don't divorce, we stay in marriages no matter what. So for Anwar, divorce clearly wasn't an answer. His wife wasn't doing what he told her to and in the past he said it would be easy if she died in childbirth. And that's obviously where the plan came in to kill his wife and unborn baby. And, as we know from most family annihilators, they create a plan very callously. They don't lose control in a fit of rage. They know exactly what they're doing, and Anwar knew exactly what he was doing when he took Forzia up to Arthur's seat that night.
Speaker 1:
So, looking at the issue of women being killed by being pushed off great heights, the campaign group Killed Women was set up by family members who have lost women to male violence. The network includes Emma, who is Kelly Fitzgibbon's sister, and Forzia's mother, yasmin. I've linked their website in the episode notes and please do check them out. So Killed Women have launched this Fallen Women campaign, which is calling for quote the deaths of all women who have fallen from a height to be reviewed by police to identify whether domestic abuse may have been a feature. They continue to state quote criminologists. Professor Jane Moncton Smith estimates there are around 130 primarily female victims killed every year in England and Wales whose deaths are not investigated or prosecuted as homicides. So what that means is when we talk about you know, a woman being killed by their partner or ex-partner every three days, there could be actually hundreds more women who are killed who are just not included in those homicide statistics, usually because the perpetrator has made it look like an accident or suicide or they've been pushed and no one can prove that it's a homicide. And we've spoken about Jane Moncton Smith on the podcast before. She created the domestic homicide timeline and has written about a book about control and how relationships end in murder, and I've linked to it in the episode notes. Now, as we've said, knowing how many women are already killed by partners or ex-partners in the country every three days, it is really horrific to think that there are more women out there who aren't being counted. So I totally support the Killed Women campaign and encourage you to check it out on their website and socials. So back to Forzier. On the 4th of February 2022, friends and family gathered in Edinburgh and Leeds to hold a visual for Forzier and her unborn child and what would have been the due date of her child. This episode is dedicated to Forzier and her unborn baby, and we'll finish with a quote from her mother, yasmin, from the Killed Women website.
Speaker 1:
Forzier was a beautiful soul inside and out. An only child, pregnant with her first baby when her life was taken. Forzier was popular, kind, generous and selfless. She had a big heart and would always go out of her way to help others. She made such a positive impact on so many lives. A big character who would light up a room with her beautiful smile and outgoing personality. She was our heartbeat and the center of our lives. A successful lawyer and humanitarian who volunteered for many charities, which included in their work feeding the homeless and mentoring vulnerable children and orphans. Forzier took us to numerous countries that we'd never experienced if it had not been for her enthusiasm to travel and see the world. The most perfect daughter who had her whole life ahead of her but who had already achieved so much in the short life that she had. Our lives and world have been destroyed by this needless loss. The spark has gone out of our lives forever. We have been left in the depths of darkness to suffer this lifelong loss. We are not living anymore, but just existing.
Speaker 1:
This has been Killer in the Family podcast, written and produced by me, claire Lachlan, with the music from the brilliant Tom Vox and Pixel Bay. I'll be back next week with another episode with a very special guest, so please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Follow me on social media at Killer in the Family pod and let me know any stories you'd like me to cover as well. Until then, I've been Claire Lachlan. This is Killer in the Family podcast. Until next time, take care you.