Each month we are looking back over the crime anniversaries from the most significant cases in recent history. Here are some of the most notorious crimes from September.
11th September: The honour killing of Shafilea Ahmed (2003)
Shafilea Ahmed was a 17-year-old British-Pakistani girl. She spent many years of her life struggling due to her parents' belief that she had become ‘too westernised’ growing up in the UK. This came to a head with her disappearance and death. Her parents were convicted of her murder in August 2012, though others were also believed to have been involved.
Shafilea disappeared on 11th September 2003 but her remains were not discovered until February 2004. Shafilea’s sister Alesha got herself arrested so she could tell the police her parents had killed her sister because she refused to accept an arranged marriage. Both parents were imprisoned for a minimum of 25 years.
14th September: Murder of Nuneaton schoolgirl Naomi Smith (1995)
Naomi Louise Smith was a 15-year-old schoolgirl who failed to return home after posting a letter for her mother. Her father and best friend went out to search for her and found her body lying beneath the slide in a children’s play area, just a few hundred metres from her home.
Naomi suffered a terrible level of violence including sexual assault and her throat was cut. Naomi’s murderer was discovered to be 19-year-old Edwin Hopkins, a man known to have an obsession with knives. DNA and forensic evidence were instrumental in his capture, and he was sentenced to life imprisonment.
18th September: Double murder of Manchester Police Officers Nicola Hughes and Fiona Bone (2012)
Nicola Hughes and Fiona Bone were serving police officers carrying out a routine response when they were ambushed and murdered by Dale Cregan. Cregan lured the officers to his home with the report of a burglary in Tameside, Greater Manchester. The incident was the first time in the United Kingdom that two female officers were killed while on duty. Dale Cregan was given a whole-life tariff prison sentence in June 2013.
21st September: The unprovoked murder of Ross Parker (2001)
Ross Parker was a 17-year-old white British boy murdered in an unprovoked crime. Ross was killed in Millfield, Peterborough at a time when racial tensions were high in the wake of the 9/11 attacks in New York. Ross was attacked by a group of British-Pakistani men who stabbed him, beat him with a hammer and repeatedly kicked him before leaving him to die. Three men were found guilty of Ross’ murder in December 2022.
22nd September: Star Hobson murdered at just one year old (2020)
Star Hobson was born in May 2019 but was murdered just over a year later by her mother’s girlfriend at her home in Keighley, West Yorkshire. Her mother, Frankie Smith, got into a relationship with Savannah Brockhill, and Star’s life became torturous.
The COVID-19 pandemic meant much of the neglect and pain she suffered was able to be hidden. However, on 22nd September 2020, she was ‘severely assaulted’ by Savannah Brockhill and suffered fatal injuries to her internal organs. On 14th December 2021, Brockhill was convicted of murder and Frankie Smith was found guilty of causing or allowing her death.
