Slough Express Article
Date: Dec 2 2005 Friday
Front Page Article:
'WPC helped killers to flee abroad'
By Daniel Lyons
A POLICEWOMAN helped two men flee the country after they allegedly tortured a teenager before shooting him in the head, a jury heard this week.
Prosecuting lawyers claim PC Rupinder Gill, 27, was in a relationship with Mohammed Akbar when 18-year-old Daniel Higgins was killed.
Her boyfriend was one member of an armed gang which broke into a flat and took it in turn to torture Mr Higgins with knives and a hammer, Reading Crown Court was told.
Mr Higgins was then shot as girl-friend Natalie Muncey cowered with her ten-month-old baby in the next room of the flat in Thirlmere Avenue, Burnham.
Akbar, 28, of Eastbridge Road, Slough, and friend Zahir Hussain allegedly used a Eurostar train to get from London to Paris after the attack in November 2003.
Gill is accused of travelling with them and returning to England a few days later.
Her mobile phone records allegedly show that she had been talking to Akbar within minutes of the savage killing.
And police searching her computer found she had looked up flights and Eurostar times on the internet, the jury heard.
Charles Miskin QC, prosecuting, said the gang murdered Mr Higgins to avenge the killing of Mohammed Choudry in February 2003.
He added: "Mohammed Akbar was amongst these masked men. He does not deny that.
"At the time of the offence, Rupinder Gill was his girlfriend and two days after the murder he and another man called Zahir Hussain fled the jurisdiction.
"They fled by Eurostar to Paris, from where they moved to Malaga. Mohammed Akbar's girlfriend assisted him in his flight."
The pair were arrested and extradited from Spain earlier this year.
Detectives investigating Gill, who trained at Hendon Police College, found St Valentine's Day cards sent after Akbar had fled the UK. The trainee officer was arrested in May 2004.
Hussain has since admitted assisting an offender and Akbar, although admitting to being in the flat, denies murder.
Home Office pathologist Dr Ashley Fegan Earl told the jury that Mr Higgins' killers used a machete to cut into his head. They also stabbed him all over his body and hit him with a blunt weapon.
Gang member Majad Khan, 29, of Wexham Road, Slough, was jailed for 20 years at Reading Crown Court in November last year for his part in the teenager's murder.
Gill, from Hounslow, denies assisting an offender.
The trial continues.
link - http://icberkshire.icnetwork.co.uk/0100new...-name_page.html
