By Grâçia Ada Obi
A violent man gave a woman first degree burns after pouring a boiled hot mixture of sugar and water onto her stomach, a day after covering her with fuel and threatening to set her on fire.
Khaled Aziz turned up at a former friend’s home wearing a “Guy Fawkes-style” mask before launching into a terrifying verbal assault. After leaving, he came back moments later with fuel that smelled like petrol, doused the woman in the liquid and threatened to set her on fire while he searched for a lighter, a court was told.
He then returned to the woman’s home the following day, boiled a kettle of sugar water, grabbed her by the neck, and poured the contents onto her stomach.
His victim was left in hospital receiving treatment for first degree burns after Aziz’s savage attack. But the abuse did not stop.
Days later Aziz was back at her house to continue his shocking campaign of abuse. He entered her home while she was sleeping and burned her back with straighteners after threatening to kill her.
In a victim impact statement read out in court, the woman said: “What happened to me has caused long-lasting physical, emotional and practical consequences that I’m still dealing with every day.”
She added: “The physical injuries affect my ability to carry out normal everyday tasks and have left me feeling vulnerable in my own body. During the attack, an accelerant was poured over me while I was threatened with being set on fire.
“I was also subjected to threats to kill me – these threats were terrifying. I genuinely believed that I was going to die.”
Newcastle Crown Court heard that on the afternoon of April 7 last year Aziz went to a former friend’s home wearing a “Guy Fawkes-style” half mask and began shouting at her and smashing plant pots in her garden. The court heard that he went in and out of the victim’s home several times and on one occasion brought a “strong smelling liquid” with him, which the victim described as smelling like petrol.
The court heard that he poured the liquid over the woman and began looking in her house for a lighter, which he was unable to find.
The judge, Recorder Andrew Latimer, said: “That was a terrifying experience for a lone woman in her own home to be poured in something that she believed was petrol and the criminal who did it was now searching for a lighter.”
The following day, on April 8, Aziz returned to the victim’s home, forced her towards the stairs, and proceeded to go to the kitchen to boil a kettle which he had added sugar to. As he poured the contents on the woman’s stomach he told her he would kill her, the court heard.
The woman received treatment for first-degree burns at Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary and was prescribed morphine to help with the pain. She then temporarily moved in with family and the council boarded up the house for her safety.
But on April 29, just four days after the woman returned to her home, Aziz entered the property in the early hours of the morning and found the woman asleep in her bedroom.
Jane Foley, prosecuting, told the court: “She was asleep in bed when she heard the door and then the defendant’s voice inside her bedroom. He again threatened to kill her and used straighteners from her bedside cabinet to burn her back during a struggle in the dark. She feared that the defendant would kill her.
“She said she recognised him by his voice and the torchlight from his phone. She managed to phone her father, leaving voicemails in which she could be heard crying, before calling the police in distress.
“When officers attended they found her crying in bed with fresh marks on her back. The straighteners were still warm.”
Aziz, of West Holborn Road, South Shields, was jailed for four-and-a-half years after pleading guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm. The 32-year-old, who has 14 convictions for 23 offences, was also handed a 12-year restraining order preventing him from contacting the victim.
The court heard that Aziz, who appeared in court via video link from HMP Durham, had a difficult childhood, didn’t finish school, and started experimenting with drugs from a young age but has been co-operating well in prison.
