Edinburgh Arthur's Seat murder: Fawziyah Javed's mother says trial has brought 'no closure, no justice'

Family will launch charity in victim’s name – the Fawziyah Javed Foundation

The mother of a pregnant lawyer who died after her husband pushed her off Arthur’s Seat has said his imprisonment for at least 20 years has brought the family no closure and no justice. Yasmin Javed said no sentence would ever change the pain and grief she and her husband Mohammed felt at the loss of their only daughter, Fawziyah Javed.

Kashif Anwar, 29, was convicted last week of murdering 31-year-old Fawziyah and causing the death of her unborn child during a visit to Edinburgh from their home in Pudsey, West Yorkshire, in September 2021. He had denied the charge but was found guilty and given a sentence of life imprisonment with a minimum of 20 years before he can be considered for parole.

Ms Javed told the Evening News: “It makes no difference to our pain because we’ve got the life sentence – this pain and grief is for life and there is no closure and there is no justice.” She described last week’s trial and sentencing at the High Court in Edinburgh as “a procedure we had to go through”. But she stressed: “Even if they brought back hanging and they hanged him, the fact is we haven’t got Fawziyah here. He’s taken that, he’s destroyed our lives and our world and no sentence is ever going to change that. The fact remains she’s not here and he has taken her life and the baby’s life. We had to go through this procedure, but it’s not changed our pain or our grief – it’s as raw as the day it happened.”

Fawziyah as a child and as an adult - the judge described her as 'a very special person'

The court heard that Anwar was “abusive, controlling, manipulative, aggressive and violent” towards Fawziyah and she was planning to leave him when they returned from their visit to Edinburgh. But on an evening climb of Arthur’s Seat on September 2, 2021, he pushed her over the edge. And despite suffering multiple injuries which would soon prove fatal she was able to tell those who came to her aid what had happened.

Ms Javed said she only learned some details of the full extent of Anwar’s controlling and violent behaviour towards Fawziyah during the trial. She said when the couple first met, Anwar had seemed okay. But she said: “That’s the case with a lot of these type of men; then once you’re married and you live with that person you start finding out their true colours and the mask comes off.”

She said she first became worried about Fawziyah’s marriage just a couple of months after the couple’s wedding in December 2020. “I could tell there was something wrong but she didn’t tell us immediately and when she did tell us – a few months into the marriage – she would always start the sentence off ‘I don’t want you to worry...’ and then she would tell us snippets but I know, as things came out in court, she didn’t tell us everything. She didn’t want to worry us – and that was Fawziyah through and through.”

Fawziyah was actively involved in supporting a wide range of charities and now her family plans to set up one in her name to carry on her work – the Fawziyah Javed Foundation. “It’s in the pipeline,” said Ms Javed. “We want to help the poor, the needy, the destitute, the vulnerable. We’re just going to reach out and help all these people because Fawziyah was passionate about helping people, the homeless, the destitute, orphans. We want to help them financially and help them emotionally –that’s what she used to do and she had an ambition to set up a charity in the future anyway, so we’re hopefully going to carry that forward.”

Fawziyah Javed at her graduation with father Mohmmed and mother Yasmin

They have already raised more than £8,000 through a GoFundMe page set up to fundraise in her memory to support “the homeless, orphans, poor and needy around the world”.

During the trial Fawziyah’s parents had the support in court of a large number of their wider family. Ms Javed said: “We had brothers, sisters, cousins, nephews and nieces – and the public were coming in and were supportive as well. They were reaching out, saying they were very, very sorry about what had happened and very sad and distraught at hearing the things they did.”

But Ms Javed said despite the public support, she was unlikely ever to visit Edinburgh again. She and her husband and Fawziyah had enjoyed visiting the Capital together, but now it would be too painful to come back again. “It’s a shame but it’s because of what has happened.

"Fawziyah was my only child and, as the judge Lord Beckett said, she was a very special person. He [Anwar] has destroyed so many lives and the ripple effect is absolutely enormous. He has destroyed our lives on an unimaginable scale.”