A pregnant teenager allegedly went into premature labour after a man later accused of murdering her “sped off” in his vehicle, causing her to fall over, a court has heard.
Recovery truck driver Mohammed Azim is on trial at Wolverhampton Crown Court, accused of murdering his 19-year-old girlfriend on his 41st birthday on November 5 last year, just months after she gave birth to a premature baby that was fathered by another man.
Azim, of Tividale Road in Tipton, West Midlands, denies the murder of Ms Whitehouse, who had just been to visit her baby in a neonatal intensive care unit, by crushing her against a lamppost in Old Park Lane in Oldbury with his Mercedes Sprinter vehicle, causing fatal chest injuries.
Giving evidence at the trial on Thursday, Ms Whitehouse’s aunt Melissa Wheeler told the jury her niece had met Azim, who she referred to as H, when she was 16 or 17 after they exchanged numbers in West Bromwich High Street and began a relationship.
During questioning by junior prosecution counsel Robert Price, Ms Wheeler agreed that the victim had been “besotted” with Azim but that the pair would fight a lot and the defendant would sometimes block Ms Whitehouse when she tried to speak to him.
She said she was aware that Azim was not the father of Ms Whitehouse’s baby and he was “not happy” that she was pregnant so she would hide her bump with long clothing when she visited or stayed with him.
Mr Price asked the witness about how Ms Whitehouse came to be in labour 10 weeks early.
“She said she had an argument with H,” Ms Wheeler said.
“I’m not sure what it was about and H sped off in the car and she fell over and cut her hand.
“The next day she had pains in her tummy and she said she didn’t want to tell H because he was asleep and I said you need to call the hospital because you might be in early labour.”
Ms Whitehouse went to the hospital the next day in a taxi and her baby was born soon after, the court heard.
Libby Higgs, a friend of the victim, told the jury about the nature of Ms Whitehouse’s relationship with the defendant.
She said during her evidence: “She told me he used to say vile things to her, he used to punch her and do things to her like that and at points it would mark her arms.
“She asked him why he did that and he said it was playfighting. She said to me it’s not playfighting because he’s marking me and I’ve got bruises on my arms.
“She had to wear jackets to hide them… She said she covered them herself because she didn’t want people seeing.
“She said they had a lot of arguments and he would tell her to f*** off and leave him… she said he would ring her off no caller ID and he would drive past where she lived to see if he could see her.
“She used to voice note me a lot and sometimes she would be crying.
“I used to tell her she needed to leave him because he was no good for her and it would only get worse if she didn’t leave him.
“She knew the relationship she was in wasn’t a healthy one and she knew she had to leave him but she didn’t know what it was, she couldn’t leave him.”
Ms Higgs told the court of an incident around a year before she died in which Ms Whitehouse called her and she could hear Azim shouting in the background.
When she spoke to the victim a few hours later, she said Ms Whitehouse explained they had been arguing and while in Azim’s car, he had “picked up her phone and chucked it at her face”.
The witness also recalled how Ms Whitehouse had been trying to breastfeed her baby but was not producing enough milk.
She said: “(Azim) called her a dumb, silly bitch and she was no good at being a mum because she couldn’t even feed her baby properly.
“She said when (the baby) was discharged she was going to leave H because she knew she couldn’t remain in a relationship with him because of social services.”
The trial continues.
