photo gallery

Rachel Manning murder: Man jailed for killing 19-year-old woman 11 years after former boyfriend wrongly convicted of her killing

Shahidul Ahmed was ordered to serve a minimum of 17 years in prison

By Nick Renaud-Komiya - Independent.co.uk

September 5, 2013

A man has been given a life sentence for killing a 19-year-old woman, 11 years after her former boyfriend was wrongly jailed for the murder.

Shahidul Ahmed, 41, strangled Rachel Manning in Milton Keynes and disposed of her body at a golf course in 2000. He was today convicted of her murder at Luton Crown Court.

Barri White was convicted of her murder in 2002, but five years later this was quashed by appeal judges and he was acquitted in 2008 after a re-trial.

Mr White's friend Keith Hyatt, who was cleared of murder but convicted of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice by helping to dispose of the body in 2002, also had his conviction quashed in 2007 after serving a jail sentence.

Mr Ahmed, from Bletchley, was ordered to serve a minimum of 17 years.

Mr White said he was “over the moon” that justice has now been done.

He added that he was “really happy that Rachel's family have finally got justice and the closure they deserve”.

Detective Chief Superintendent Rob Mason, of Thames Valley Police said, “What is important about the verdict today is justice for Rachel and her family. I cannot praise Rachel's family enough; they have remained dignified and courageous throughout despite the unimaginable nightmare they have endured. I hope that today will give some comfort to the family after the ordeal they have been through over the past 12 years.

”This has been a long and difficult investigation which has resulted in four criminal trials. Both Barri White and Keith Hyatt gave evidence as prosecution witnesses during this trial and I would like to thank them for their assistance in helping secure this conviction.“

Father-of-five Ahmed stood trial earlier this year, when a jury failed to reach a verdict.

Ahmed, whose DNA was linked to the case following his arrest for a sex attack in 2010, did not give evidence at either trial.

The court heard that the former restaurant worker got rid of his car eight days after Miss Manning's death.

She had been strangled and her face disfigured with a steering lock, which was found 500m from her body.

Baljit Ubhey, chief Crown Prosecutor for Thames and Chiltern Crown Prosecution Service, said, ”This case involved the tragic murder of a young woman more than 12 years ago. Rachel Manning, who was trying to find her way home after a night out, had the misfortune to come across Ahmed."

Rachel Manning murder trial: Shahidul Ahmed jailed for life after boyfriend Barri White’s conviction was quashed

• Shahidul Ahmed killed Rachel Manning, 18, but evaded justice for 13 years

• Miss Manning’s boyfriend was wrongly convicted but freed on appeal in 2008

• ‘I’m over the moon justice has finally been done for Rachel,’ Barri White said

• Ahmed disfigured Rachel’s face with car lock – which had his DNA on it

• In 2010 he was arrested for a sex attack and DNA test linked him to murder

• Judge at Luton Crown Court sentenced him to minimum of 17 years in jail

By Arthur Martin - DailyMail.co.uk

September 4, 2013

A restaurant waiter who murdered a young woman was jailed for life yesterday – 11 years after her boyfriend was wrongly convicted of her killing.

Shahidul Ahmed strangled 19-year-old shop assistant Rachel Manning after she rejected his sexual advances on her way home from a fancy-dress party in December 2000.

He then bludgeoned her face with a car steering lock in an attempt to make her unrecognisable before hiding her body in undergrowth on a golf course.

Miss Manning’s boyfriend Barri White was convicted of her murder in 2002 and was only freed after a retrial in 2008.

The couple’s friend Keith Hyatt, now 58, spent two and a half years in jail after being found guilty of helping Mr White cover up the murder.

His conviction was also quashed, albeit after serving his sentence.

Ahmed, a father of five, was arrested in 2010 after police matched his DNA to traces left on the steering lock and Miss Manning’s clothes.

Officers had taken a DNA sample six months earlier after arresting him for sexually assaulting a female student.

She had got into his car after mistakenly thinking he was a taxi driver and only managed to escape after a passerby came to her rescue.

Ahmed, 41, who was born in Bangladesh and lived in Bletchley, Buckinghamshire, was found guilty at the end of a retrial at Luton Crown Court yesterday. A jury failed to reach a verdict at his first trial in February.

Sentencing him to life imprisonment with the order that he serve a minimum of 17 years, Mr Justice Wilkie said: ‘For almost ten years you lived undetected with the knowledge of what you had done.

‘You must have been aware that two other people, Barri White and Keith Hyatt, had suffered the agony of being accused, convicted and imprisoned for offences of which they were wholly innocent and although this was eventually put right, nothing can bring back either Rachel’s lost life or their lost years. Fortunately, out of the misfortune of the woman attacked by you in 2010, the police were at last able to identify you as the person who had attacked her, then killed her.

‘You took out your anger and frustration on her much-loved face and disfigured it by great violence, having sought to dispose of her where she would not be found for a sufficient time to enable you to cover your tracks.’

He told Miss Manning’s parents: ‘No one can imagine the grief you must have suffered. I can only admire the stoicism you have shown in this court and convey to you my profound sympathy over the loss of your daughter Rachel and everything that has happened since then until today.’

On the night of December 9, 2000, Miss Manning went with Mr White to a Seventies-themed fancy-dress party in Milton Keynes. They went on to Chicago’s nightclub but Miss Manning later walked off alone to catch a taxi.

At 2.43am, she used a phone box to call her flatmate in Wolverton, a suburb of Milton Keynes, and said she was upset. She also called Mr White, then aged 20, and told him she was lost.

They agreed to meet at a Blockbuster video store where he and Mr Hyatt would pick her up. When they arrived at 3.13am in Mr Hyatt’s van she was not there. It is likely that she was already dead.

A two-year investigation by the BBC’s Rough Justice programme uncovered glaring errors in the prosecution case.It commissioned new DNA and forensic tests which proved it was impossible for the men to have committed the crimes.

In 2007, two and a half years after the programme was screened, the Court of Appeal quashed their convictions. Mr White faced a retrial a year later and was cleared.

Yesterday, Mr White said: ‘I feel over the moon that justice has finally been done and really happy that Rachel’s family have finally got justice and the closure they deserve.’

Mr Hyatt added: ‘We can say we are innocent of this, we never did this, and the right guy has now gone to jail.’

The innocent boyfriend who lost 6 precious years rotting in a cell

When Barri White left his girlfriend Rachel Manning outside a nightclub after a drunken argument, it was to end in tragedy for her and a six-year prison nightmare for him.

Just before 3am, she called from a phone box to tell him she was lost and he arranged to pick her up outside a Blockbuster store on an estate.

That was the last time he heard her voice. She never arrived at the shop and her body was found two days later.

But Mr White had no time to mourn after becoming the chief suspect in her murder.

In 2002, he was jailed for life and spent six years in prison, filled with regret for leaving Miss Manning outside the nightclub and not sharing a taxi home with her.

Despite his protestations of innocence, many in jail believed he was the ruthless killer of a defenceless teenager. In some high security prisons, he asked to be placed in solitary confinement because he feared for his safety.

After years of legal battles and living with the stigma of being branded a murderer, he still thinks about the life they might have led together.

‘I was going to ask her to marry me on Christmas Day,’ he said. ‘I had bought the ring. You never know, if she had been here today we might still be married and have two lovely kids. It’s just a question now.’

Mr White’s conviction was quashed at the Court of Appeal in 2007 and he was acquitted at a retrial the following year.

However, he has never received a penny in compensation for his lost years. ‘I deserve a life back,’ he told the BBC. ‘Getting compensation and an apology from the police, that would be my justice.

‘It was six years of my life, my whole twenties, pretty much. They’re supposed to be the best years of your life, but I was rotting in jail.’

When asked about facing Rachel’s parents Liz and Paul during his numerous court appearances, he said: ‘It wasn’t nice them looking at me like I actually was the murderer of their daughter. I wanted to say that it wasn’t me. I loved their daughter too much.’

Despite another man now starting a life sentence for their daughter’s murder, her family still, in part, blame Mr White.

In a stinging statement, they said yesterday: ‘We believe Rachel would still be with us today if she had not been abandoned by her boyfriend the night she was attacked, killed and brutally battered. We cannot forget that.’

Rachel Manning murder trial: Teenager 'lost' after night out

BBC.co.uk

January 22, 2013

A woman discovered dead on a golf course phoned her boyfriend to say she was lost on the night she was killed, Luton Crown Court heard.

Rachel Manning, 19, had been on a night out with Barri White when they became separated in Milton Keynes.

Her body was found at Woburn three days later, on 12 December 2000.

Shahidul Ahmed, of Chestnut Crescent, Bletchley, denies murder. Mr White spent six years in jail before being cleared of murdering Miss Manning.

Mr White, then 20, described his final hours with shop assistant Miss Manning, who lived with two flat-mates in Wolverton.

The pair had been to his mother's 40th birthday party at a village hall in Milton Keynes and both were wearing 1970s fancy dress.

'Upset and angry'

At about midnight on 9 December 2000 they went to a night club in Milton Keynes.

Mr White said "nothing bad" happened in the club but when he and Miss Manning left two hours later he had a row with a stranger and walked off, telling Miss Manning to get a taxi.

He said he told her he was walking to a friend's house to get a lift home.

He said: "I was a bit upset and angry about what had happened outside the club - a bit heated."

He added there was no ill-feeling between him and Miss Manning.

He said he went to the home of Keith Hyatt, on the Fishermead Estate in Milton Keynes, and received a phone call on the landline from Miss Manning.

"She was telling me she had got lost," he said.

"She didn't know where she was. She wanted me to come and get her."

Mr White said he had told her to meet him at a nearby shopping precinct.

Convictions quashed

Mr Hyatt drove Mr White to get Miss Manning but she never arrived.

They then drove around the Oldbrook estate in Milton Keynes looking for her, before returning to Mr Hyatt's house.

Mr White said he then set off on foot searching the estate for his girlfriend, before calling Mr Hyatt from a phone box asking him to collect him.

Mr White was taken to his mother's house, arriving at about 05:00 GMT on 10 December 2000.

After working later that day at JJB Sports in Milton Keynes, Mr White said he tried to phone Miss Manning's flat.

He said on 11 December 2000 he went to her new workplace, where she had been due to start work that day, and found she had not turned up.

"At that stage I decided to phone police," he said. "I wanted to report her missing."

Mr White was convicted of her murder in 2002.

His conviction was later quashed on appeal and he was acquitted at a retrial in 2008.

Restaurant worker 'strangled teenager and dumped her body on a golf course'

• Shahidul Ahmed, 41, accused of murdering Rachel Manning, 18

• It is alleged to have happened on Sunday December 10, 2000

• Miss Manning's boyfriend Barri White convicted of her murder in 2002

• The conviction was later quashed and he was acquitted in 2008

By Leon Watson - DailyMail.co.uk

January 16, 2013

A restaurant worker was responsible for strangling a teenage girl and dumping her body 12 years ago, a jury heard today.

Shahidul Ahmed, 41, murdered shop assistant Rachel Manning, 18, after she made a late night call from a public phone box in Milton Keynes, then drove her body to a golf course where he left it in the undergrowth, it is alleged.

After killing her he disfigured her face with a car steering lock, it is claimed.

Today, Ahmed, of Bletchley, Buckinghamshire, went on trial for the murder, which was alleged to have happened on Sunday December 10, 2000.

The Bangladesh-born defendant denies the charge. Russell Gumpert, prosecuting, said DNA found on the steering lock matched the accused's.

The lock was discovered by the road 'on the direct route between the spot where the body was hidden and Shahidul Ahmed's home in Bletchley'.

Luton Crown Court also heard Ahmed sold his car eight days after Miss Manning, who had been to a fancy dress party then a nightclub, was murdered.

The jury of seven women and five men heard that Ahmed came to police attention in May 2010 when he was arrested for an unrelated matter.

It was at this point officers matched his DNA to the unsolved murder, the jury was told. Mr Gumpert said the victim was strangled with a soft ligature.

'Her body was deposited in the undergrowth at Woburn Golf Club about eight miles from the centre of Milton Keynes,' said the barrister.

'The prosecution case is that she was murdered by Shahidul Ahmed and that he attacked her close to a telephone box in Milton Keynes from which she had just made a call, before driving her body to the golf club and disposing of it.

'There is no evidence which points to any particular motive, although it seems likely that the impulse to attack her would have been a sexual one.

'Whether he always intended to kill her, or only did so because she was not willing to comply with his demands is unknown.'

Miss Manning's boyfriend Barri White was convicted of her murder in 2002. His conviction was later quashed on appeal and he was acquitted at a retrial in 2008.

Miss Manning had been to a 70s' theme party with Mr White and her friends on Saturday December 9, 2000.

They went on to Chicago's nightclub and left at about 2.15am, with Mr White walking to stay at a friend, Keith Hyatt's, home. Miss Manning walked off alone, to catch a taxi.

She phoned her home in Wolverton from the phone box at 2.43am and spoke to her flatmate to say she was upset.

The flatmate, Chris Gardiner, phoned her back but the call failed. She then phoned Mr White and said she did not know where she was.

The pair, who had been drinking, agreed to meet at a Blockbuster video store and he and Mr Hyatt would pick her up. When they arrived at 3.13am in Mr Hyatt's white van she was not there.

The prosecutor said it was likely that she was already dead. Mr White went out again later on foot and called to see her at work the next day. When he heard she had not shown up he alerted the police.

Man, 40, charged with golf club murder of teenager Rachel Manning 11 years ago (after fiancé served six years in jail before being cleared)

• Appeared before magistrates in Milton Keynes

• Shop worker's half-naked body found dumped on exclusive golf course

• Investigation into her death re-opened after her fiance was cleared of her murder after serving six years in jail

• Barri White in public gallery for today's hearing

By David Richards - DailyMail.co.uk

December 7, 2011

A middle-aged man appeared in court today charged with the murder of a teenager whose half-naked body was found dumped in the grounds of one of Britain's most exclusive golf courses 11 years ago.

Shahidul Ahmed, 40, from Bletchley, appeared at Milton Keynes Magistrates' Court and was remanded in custody. He will next appear at Luton Crown Court on December 14.

The investigation into the death of Rachel Manning, 19, was re-opened after her fiance Barri White was cleared of her murder after serving six years in jail.

He was in the public gallery for today's hearing.

Rachel had been strangled before her killer battered her face with a car crook lock. She was found in the grounds of Woburn Golf Club, in Milton Keynes, Bucks, on December 12, 2000.

Mr White, now aged 30, was jailed for life in 2002 for her murder, only to be freed after being acquitted of killing her at a retrial.

Mr White's co-accused, Keith Hyatt, 58, served two-and-a-half years for perverting the course of justice, relating to the post-death battering of the victim’s face, before also having his conviction quashed.

Rachel had been on her way home from her future mother-in-law's 40th birthday party in Milton Keynes when she disappeared.

She had left Chicago’s nightclub in Milton Keynes, dressed in a Seventies-style outfit of white, knee-length boots with platform heels, short black skirt, white blouse and blue wig.

The event, on December 9, 2000, was a late party to mark future mother-in-law Sharon Shaheed’s 40th birthday.

Rachel, Barri and other friends went on to another club, going their separate ways around 2.15am.

Her body was then found by a man walking his dog on the morning of December 12, in undergrowth at Woburn Golf Club, with the stoplock discovered 1,600ft away.

It was in 2002, at Aylesbury Crown Court, Bucks., that Mr White was convicted of her murder and jailed for life. Mr Hyatt was convicted of moving her body and disfiguring her and was subsequently jailed for five years.

A large campaign then began to have the men freed and the convictions quashed, with Dr Peter Bull, ‘the father of geo-science forensics in the 1990s’, who worked on an investigation for BBC’s Rough Justice programme, labelling the evidence 'totally implausible'.

That programme was aired in March 2005, three years before Mr White finally walked free.

Detective Superintendent Rob Mason, leading the investigation said yesterday: 'The man [Shahidul Ahmed] was arrested at his home address at 7am this morning.

'He was due to answer police bail on December 12 but was re-arrested after new forensic evidence came to light.

'Due to the fact this is a live investigation and we have someone in custody, I am unable to give any further details at this time.

'Rachel’s family have been informed.'