Britain: A 36-year-old man has been jailed for life after being found guilty of killing his wife and three children

BBC News:

Rahan Arshad beat his family to death with a rounders bat at their home in Cheadle Hulme, Greater Manchester, before fleeing to Thailand.

The bodies of Uzma Rahan, 32, and children Adam, 11, Abbas, eight, and Henna, six, were not found for a month.

Arshad, of Turves Road, had denied four counts of murder but was convicted by a jury at Manchester Crown Court.

The jury, consisting of eight women and four men, took about two hours to reach a unanimous verdict.

They did not believe the taxi driver's claim that he had killed his wife after arriving home to find she had killed their children.

Mr Justice David Clarke sentenced Arshad to life imprisonment and said that in this case life "meant life".

Uzma's mother and two brothers were in the public gallery beside friends and other relatives as the verdicts came in.

Her brother, Rahat Ali, shouted "Yes" as the jury convicted Arshad of his sister's murder.

The court was told that Arshad was motivated by jealousy after discovering his wife was having an affair with a family friend known as Nikki.

During his trial, the jury heard how he battered Uzma with more than 23 blows in their bedroom before beating his children to death in their playroom.

Their bodies were so badly decomposed that police needed dental records to confirm their identities.

He had planned the murders in advance, buying the rounders bat the day before and booking his ticket to Thailand more than two weeks earlier.

Police found the decomposed bodies on 20 August 2006.

After detectives tracked him down in Thailand, he confessed to their murders moments after he was flown back to the UK.

When arrested he told officers: "I confess to the murder. My beautiful kids, I don't regret killing that bitch, but my kids, killing my kids..."

But he later refused to answer police questions, claiming his wife had beaten the children to death and he killed her.

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