'Fawziyah Javed's husband got caught, but too many push killers do not' - expert
Pushing is an 'insidious form of domestic abuse' and 'must not be overlooked', leading women's charity Refuge warns.
"Don't let my husband near me, he pushed me," were the dying words of Fawziyah Javed, 31, as she lay critically injured at the foot of Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh on September 2, 2021. The lawyer was 17 weeks pregnant when she was harrowingly forced off the edge of an 823ft cliff by the man who vowed to keep her safe.
Her husband Kashif Anwar, 29, claimed she slipped and fell - but witness statements, police interviews, chilling CCTV and phone records proved his guilty conviction and he was charged with Fawziyah's murder in April 2023. As he serves his 20-year sentence, Channel 4's new documentary The Push: Murder on the Cliff airs tonight.
In the two-part docuseries, lead prosecutor Alex Prentice KC explains to filmmakers that it would have been "very difficult" to find Anwar guilty without the "great deal of evidence" collected by Fawziyah. He says: "I have prosecuted many murder cases over the course of my career but for a variety of reasons this case is extraordinary."
Kashif Anwar claimed his wife tripped and fell from the cliff face but it was later proven in court that he pushed her (Daily Record)
Anwar, 29, was handed a 20-year prison sentence in April 2023 for the murder of his wife who was 17 weeks pregnant (PA)In England and Wales, two women are killed a week by current or former partners and one in four will experience domestic abuse in their lifetime. Domestic abuse is a pattern of behaviour that is used by someone to control or obtain power over their partner and includes forms of psychological, emotional, sexual and physical abuse.
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Pushing and shoving is a very common form of physical abuse, but the scale of the issue is not well documented as it's generally very difficult to monitor and prove. The Mirror spoke to Abigail Ampofo, interim CEO of Refuge, the UK's largest domestic abuse organisation, about the prevalence of pushing and the impact of Fawziyah's high-profile murder case.
Abigal explained: "We hear time and time again from survivors who have been pushed and shoved by their abuser - whether that is from a height or more commonly in a household setting, shoved passing in the hallway, or pushed downstairs. Pushing is a particularly insidious form of domestic abuse that perpetrators use to exert power and control over women.
"Often perpetrators gaslight survivors into making them feel they were 'bumped accidentally' or were 'in the way' so much so that survivors tell us they are 'walking on eggshells' in their own homes. The emotional long-term impact of feeling like a prisoner within your own home cannot and must not be overlooked."
Gaslighting is when someone emotionally tricks a person into making them believe that their memories or beliefs are wrong. As Abigal highlighted, it often comes hand in hand with physical abuse, and in many cases of abusive partners pushing or shoving, it may be used as a deceitful way to try to mask their violence.
The criminal justice system puts pressure on survivors to prove their abuse and society should believe women, leading charity Refuge says (Yasmin Javed / SWNS)Abigail continued: "As we see in the tragic case of Fawziyah Javed, perpetrators can use pushing as a guise to claim that a survivor fell accidentally. This makes instances of pushing like other forms of domestic abuse difficult to prove and criminally prosecute, consequently making it challenging to capture the prevalence of this form of abuse.
"Often physical abuse exists alongside other forms of abuse, commonly coercive control, and we must listen to women who report any form of abuse and recognise that domestic abuse is not always physical violence, but a pattern of behaviour that is designed to terrorise, manipulate and control, and it is vital that women are supported before their lives are taken."
After Anwar pushed Fawziyah off the cliff face, he rang 999 and told the operator: "Fawziyah's just on the edge of the cliff, man. We both just slipped, I tried grabbing her arm and she fell. We both technically slipped and then I tried grabbing her arm and she went sideways." Fawziyah's final words to witnesses helped expose her husband's lies at the trial.
The brave lawyer had also spent months building a secret case against him. She had secretly recorded phone calls of Anwar threatening her and went to West Yorkshire Police twice to record his abusive behaviour. One harrowing account told how Anwar held a pillow over her face and punched it repeatedly. In another incident, she was left bleeding and unconscious.
Nizamettin Gursu was arrested in December after his girlfriend Yesim Demir fell to her death from a clifftop in Turkey and police found signs of violent struggle (Newsflash)Fawziyah was so afraid of her husband's reaction to her reporting of his behaviour that she asked the police not to pursue an investigation, but to hold the details on file in case she needed them in the future. While her experience as a lawyer ultimately helped her find justice beyond the grave, Fawziyah heartbreakingly isn't here to witness her legacy.
Abigail explained that the British justice system wrongly puts pressure on victims of domestic abuse to prove their experiences and she urges society to listen to women. She said: "There has been much coverage in the media about how Fawziyah Javed employed her legal skills to methodically collect evidence of abuse against her husband - evidence which is recognised as critical to securing the perpetrator's successful conviction for murder.
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"This serves to highlight how our criminal justice system puts undue pressure on survivors to prove their experience of domestic abuse. Survivors should not have to obtain a law degree to be granted access to justice. This horrendous case is a potent reminder that as a society, we must listen to and believe women."
Fawziyah's murder is the most high-profile pushing death in the UK, but she's not alone. A man was arrested in December last year after his girlfriend fell to her death during a clifftop marriage proposal. Yesim Demir, 39, plummeted off a cliff in Turkey in July and police revealed there were "signs of a serious argument". She survived the 104ft horror fall but later died of her injuries.
Yesim's family claimed she had been planning to break up with Gursu and would not have accepted the proposal (Newsflash)
Wendy Claxton was repeatedly assaulted by her husband and forced down the stairs of their home in 2019 (NORTHUNRIA POLICE/UNPIXS)Her boyfriend Nizamettin Gursu, 42, told police that they had been happily drinking when he went to the car to get more supplies. He said he heard a scream and then discovered that she had vanished. He said: "Everything happened at once. She lost her balance and fell down." Police found broken glasses and a broken speaker - signs of a violent struggle - at the scene.
Gursu was arrested five months later on suspicion of deliberate homicide after her family filed a criminal complaint. They claimed she had been planning to break up with him and would not have accepted the proposal. They added that she was terrified of heights and wouldn't have willingly been close enough to the edge of the cliff to fall off accidentally.
In January of this year, a retired cop was imprisoned after he caused his wife to hurtle down the stairs of their home with such 'massive force' that she suffered catastrophic injuries. Former Northumbria Police sergeant Alan Claxton, 74, had repeatedly assaulted wife Wendy, 70, and was found guilty of her manslaughter.
Student Tomiris Baysafa was pushed out of a fourth-floor window to her death by her boyfriend Murtuz Medzhidov in 2022 (Instagram)Newcastle Crown Court heard Claxton has a history of convictions for mistreating his wife, dating back to 1999 when he was given probation for threatening behaviour towards her. In 2001, he was jailed for three months for battery and making threats to kill her. There had been further domestic call-outs to the house.
The jury watched bodycam footage of a visit by two PCs after Wendy made an emergency call in May 2019. In the 16-minute video shown to the jury, Wendy told police: "He is really threatening and threatens to kill me. But I really don't want to make a complaint about it because he is mentally ill." Claxton was handed a nine-year sentence.
In 2022, a Russian man beat his girlfriend before pushing her out of a fourth-floor window to her death. Wealthy Murtuz Medzhidov, then 26, who is the son of a Prime Minister, was jailed for 13 years in a strict regime prison colony in Russia. He was found guilty of murdering student Tomiris Baysafa, 21, as he "hit her, wrung her arm and threw [her] from the window".
- Episode 1 of The Push: Murder on the Cliff airs at 9pm tonight on Channel 4.
*You can access free and confidential support on 08082000247 and digital support via live chat Monday - Friday from 3pm to 10pm at www.nationaldahelpline.org.uk. Refuge has BSL interpreters on its National Domestic Abuse Helpline, which can be accessed online Monday - Friday from 10am to 6pm.
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