A
knife-wielding midnight mugger, who murdered a pregnant prostitute he
stabbed twice in the chest as he cycled around east London looking
for victims, has been caged for life.
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
must serve twenty-nine years before he can be considered for parole
and received a six-year concurrent term for the first mugging.
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.
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."
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.
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