"All they think about is honour
"I was like a normal teenage kid
"Didn't ask 2 much
"I jus wanted to fit in
"But my culture was different
"But my family ignored"
The great pity is that Justice Evans just couldn't bring himself to mention Islam. It is the ideology, stupid.
In 2003, months before she disappeared she was forced to travel to Pakistan, where she was expected to marry a man more than ten years her senior.
In desperation Shafilea swallowed bleach, badly burning her throat and causing the man to call off the marriage. He declared she was “damaged goods”.
She returned to Britain but went missing from the family home in Warrington in September 2003. Her parents were arrested in connection with the murder, but police were unable to find enough evidence to prosecute.
Men Media: Trial judge Mr Justice Roderick Evans told them: "Your concern about being shamed in your community was greater than the love of your child."He continued: "You chose to bring up your family in Warrington but although you lived in Warrington your social and cultural attitudes were those of rural Pakistan and it was those which you imposed upon your children."You wanted your family to live in Pakistan in Warrington."As Iftikhar Ahmed was taken down to the cells, he turned to police officers sitting nearby and said: "**** off.
The parents of Shafilea Ahmed, who believed their 17-year-old daughter had brought shame on the family for wanting to live a western lifestyle, have been been jailed for 25-years each after being found guilty of her murder.
However the breakthrough came in 2010 when another of their daughters, Alesha, was arrested for organising a robbery at the family home.
Under questioning she confessed to police that she had witnessed her parents attack and kill her older sister.
Both parents denied murder claiming they believed Shafilea had run away from home.
But part way through the trial, Farzana, 49, changed her account claiming she had seen her husband attack Shafilea in the kitchen of their home.
She told the jury she had tried to intervene but her husband had attacked her.
Iftikhar Ahmed stood impassively as the verdicts were given, while his wife wiped tears from her eyes with a tissue.
Their children Junyad, Mevish and the youngest, who cannot be named for legal reasons, all broke down in tears.
Mevish Ahmed put her head in her hands and wept as the judge began discussing sentencing.
The seven men and five women of the jury returned two unanimous verdicts after deliberating for around 11 hours.
The trial had heard how both parents repeatedly attacked their eldest daughter as she was growing up because she opposed their attempts to force her to live a traditional Pakistani lifestyle.
Sobbing in the witness box, Alesha told the trial how in September 2003 things had come to a head during a row over Shafilea's clothing.
She said her parents had held the terrified teenager down forcing a plastic bag into her mouth.
She told the jury: "You could tell she was gasping for air," adding that Shafilea "wet herself because she was struggling so much".
Asked what happened next, she told the court: "That was it, she was gone."
Alesha went on to describe how the other children ran upstairs to their bedrooms in shock and she saw her father carry Shafilea's body to the car wrapped in a blanket. The children were later told to say nothing to the authorities amid a fear that they would suffer the same fate as their sister.
Shafilea's decomposed remains were discovered in the River Kent in Cumbria in February 2004. But it was not until 2010 that Alesha provided the "final piece of the puzzle" about her death, the prosecution said.
Alesha's version of events was corroborated in writings her younger sister Mevish gave to her friend Shaheen Munir in 2008, which emerged shortly after the start of Alesha's evidence.
Mevish, who supported her parents' defence, said the writings were a "fiction" which Alesha used to base her story on.
