No signs of intruder after mum found dead at home, inquest hears

An inquest into the death of a woman whose murder remains unsolved after a decade has heard police found no evidence of a break-in, disturbance or intruder at the home where she was found.

Mumtaz Member, 56, was found dead with “brutal” injuries to her head, neck and face in her home in Stoneygate, Leicester, on 12 December 2015.

Her two sons and daughter-in-law were previously charged with her murder but the charges were dropped in February 2016 due to “insufficient evidence”.

On Tuesday, retired Ch Supt Michael Graham told the court Leicestershire Police would “absolutely” follow up any new leads in the case as evidence at the inquest drew to a close.

The inquest – which is a finding of fact to determine how Mrs Member came about her death – began on 28 April and has heard from a number of witnesses.

The inquest has heard her two sons Shafiq and Mohammed, along with Shafiq’s wife Fatima, were home the night she was killed.

All three were charged with her murder in December 2015 but the charges were dropped in February 2016 due to insufficient evidence following a meeting between the investigating team and the Crown Prosecution Service.

Mr Graham was detective chief inspector at the time of Mrs Member’s death and became the senior investigating officer, taking over from the case’s first lead in March 2016.

When he took over the investigation, Mr Graham said he had been “definitely trying to foster as best [he] could a productive relationship with the family” but accepted the “starting point was difficult” due to mistrust from the family.

The court heard police had continued to engage with the family through a solicitor which Mr Graham said he felt had posed a “challenge”.

Mr Graham said there were three hypotheses that the force had remained “open-minded” to throughout the investigation. These were:

• Mrs Member was killed by one of the people in the house on the evening she died
• She was killed by a person known to her
• Mrs Member was killed by a third party

The court heard there were already 25 to 30 people in the property, including ambulance crews, when police had arrived at the house in Holmfield Avenue. Mr Graham said it had been a challenge “in terms of the integrity of the scene”.

There had been “no evidence in the house of any disturbance, no evidence in the address outside of the bedroom of any blood stains and no obvious signs of an intruder or signs of any forced entry”, Mr Graham said.

He said there had been no evidence of a clean-up and no weapon had ever been found that could be connected to the incident.

The retired officer added: “I’ve never been able to work out how there was that much blood in the room and there was no transfer outside the room.”

The court heard when it was established jewellery belonging to Mrs Member had not been recovered, it became an “obvious line of inquiry” for the police.

The inquest heard Mr Graham tried to arrange a walkthrough of the family home in Holmfield Avenue with family members, while it was still sealed off for the police investigation.

However, he said the family had felt unable to return to the house due to the “traumatic” incident.

Mr Graham told the court an alternative solution had been offered but was not agreed upon and that he had not been able to properly identify what was missing.

No motive for the killing of Mrs Member had ever been established, the court heard.

Mr Graham said the police had had a “media strategy” to assist the investigation, which had included public appeals.

While that had resulted in some intelligence of information, none of it had moved the investigation on, he told the inquest.

The inquest continues.