Recovery truck driver Mohammed Azim is accused of murdering 19-year-old Lily Whitehouse
Screen grab from CCTV footage issued by West Midlands Police of Mohammed Azim trying to tell police officers he saw someone hit Lily and then leave the scene.(Image: West Midlands Police/PA Wire)
A 41-year-old man accused of murdering his teenage girlfriend by crushing her against a lamppost in a recovery truck told jurors he lied about the hit-and-run because he “panicked”.
Mohammed Azim is accused of using his flatbed truck as a “weapon” to pin 19-year-old Lily Whitehouse against a lamppost after they got into an argument on his 41st birthday in Oldbury on November 5 last year.
The teenager, who was a mother to a young child fathered by another man, died from catastrophic chest injuries after being crushed by the vehicle.
Azim, who is on trial at Wolverhampton Crown Court, denies murder, telling a jury on Monday he hit her accidentally after dropping her off near her home.
However, when initially questioned by officers, he told police another vehicle had hit Ms Whitehouse and fled the scene.
Rachel Brand KC, prosecuting, told the jury how Azim has repeatedly lied about Ms Whitehouse’s death.
He told police and paramedics he had seen Ms Whitehouse get hit by a car that had driven off and left the scene, a story they found “strange”, but he told his trial he had accidentally run her over as he tried to leave her and go home.
“You were angry with her that night and you chased her down the road in your truck, didn’t you?” Ms Brand asked the defendant.
He said: “No that’s 100% not true, there was no need for me to chase her… when I was about to leave she wanted to come back with me, that’s the truth.”
Ms Brand said the defendant told the 999 call handler he had seen her hit by a car because he was trying to protect himself.
“When you told that lie, you were thinking of yourself weren’t you, because you didn’t want to get the blame,” Ms Brand said during cross-examination.
The defendant replied: “I didn’t believe myself that this had happened. I was lost, my head was all over the place.”
Ms Brand added: “You kept up these lies when paramedics and police arrived, you told them it happened down there, you pointed at an SUV type vehicle and said it was like that one.
“You said ‘I wish I could have chased him’, didn’t you? You also said ‘That motherf*****, if I could catch him I would kill him’, didn’t you?”
Accepting he had said that, Azim said: “I wasn’t in control myself, I was totally lost.”
The prosecutor said Azim had also lied repeatedly to doctors who had visited him while he was in custody, including saying he did not have a romantic relationship with the victim, that he could not speak to one professional because there was no Mirpuri interpreter, and that he could not have dropped Ms Whitehouse off at her home in Amber Drive, Oldbury, on the night of the fatal incident because there were “drugs people after her”.
Azim said he could not remember saying these things because he has been on medication.
Ms Brand said: “Your main thought has been to pretend it wasn’t your fault, isn’t it?”
The defendant replied: “No… it didn’t feel real to me, my head was all over the place, I panicked.”
Asked why he told police after his arrest that he could not remember what had happened to Ms Whitehouse, Azim said: “I wasn’t in my control, I was lost, I panicked.
“It was shocking, it was a shock.”
Ms Brand asked: “Didn’t you want to tell the police it had been a terrible accident?”
The defendant said: “It took me a long time to recover from this trauma, I was lost.”
Wiping his eyes with a tissue as he was asked by his defence barrister Imran Shafi KC how his mental state was, Azim said he is no longer under observation due to concerns he may take his own life, but was still on medication.
He said: “If I could give my life to bring her back, I would,” he said.
The trial continues.
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