Knife-Wielding Mugger Stabbed Prostitute To Death

"Cold Blooded": Farooq Shah

A knife-wielding midnight mugger is facing a life sentence for murdering a pregnant prostitute he stabbed twice in the chest as he cycled around east London looking for victims.

Farooq Shah, 21, of Station Road, Forest Gate had robbed a vulnerable victim less than an hour earlier then targeted 24 year-old Romanian Mariana Popa – the mother of a six year-old child who had only been in the UK a few weeks.

He was convicted at Woolwich Crown Court of murdering Mariana in Ilford Lane, Redbridge, shortly before midnight on October 28, last year.

He was also found guilty of a knife-point mugging in nearby Upton Park the same night, when he robbed a partially-sighted man in his fifties, and will be sentenced on June 27.

Detective Inspector Darren Richards said: "This was a cold-blooded, senseless murder by a man who went out that night, armed with a knife, intent on using it to commit serious injury to someone.



"He had already threatened and robbed a vulnerable man with a knife earlier that night, and he was hanging around the Ilford Lane area, looking for another victim.

“He killed Mariana because she was there, because he thought he could get away with it.

“In doing so, he has deprived a young daughter of her mother. Our thoughts and condolences are with the family and friends of Mariana."



Stabbed To Death: Mariana Popa

The murder investigation was launched by officers from the Homicide and Major Crime Command after police were called by the London Ambulance Service at approx 00:15am on Tuesday, October 29, to reports of a woman injured in Ilford Lane, near the junction with Loxford Lane.



Officers attended and she was treated for a stab injury and she was taken to an east London hospital where she died at 01:53am.

The post-mortem examination ascertained that she died from shock and haemorrhage and stab wounds to the chest.



Mariana, who has a six year-old daughter, had been spoken to by police three times that night and she had been issued with a caution for soliciting.



CCTV footage proved critical in this case, and approximately 400 hours was reviewed over the course of the investigation.

Police recovered the footage from a number of cameras along the road, one of which had actually caught the murder taking place.

It shows Mariana walking along with a man on a bicycle, when he is seen to take a knife from his back pocket and stab her twice in the chest.

He then makes off towards Loxford Lane on his bike, while Mariana manages to make her way to a nearby shop where she collapsed.



Through the footage, detectives were able to trace the attacker to an area around St. Francis Way.

During door-to-door enquiries on November 6, officers discovered a bicycle matching the description of that seen in the CCTV footage.

Shah was inside the flat and, finding he fitted the description of the murderer, he was immediately arrested. 



At the address, police found a bag belonging to Shah that matched one worn by the murderer in the footage; they also recovered a Samsung Galaxy phone which Shah had given to his friend, who was present at the flat. 



Enquiries revealed that the phone had been taken during a knife-point robbery in Harold Road, Upton Park, at approx 11.00pm on the night of October 28.

CCTV footage had already shown that the murderer had been travelling from that direction to Ilford Lane.

That victim was partially sighted, but crucially was able to describe his assailant's distinctive thick beard.