Police face questions after 'system failed victims' of double murderer who hid bodies in freezer

Police are facing questions over a string of failings that allowed a murderer who put his victims in a freezer to escape detection for years.

Zahid Younis, 36, was jailed on Thursday for a minimum of 38 years after being found guilty of killing Henriett Szucs, 34, and Mihrican “Jan” Mustafa, 38, between 2016 and 2018.

The convicted sex offender with a history of preying on the vulnerable stored their bodies in a chest freezer in his east London flat until they were discovered by chance in April last year.

It has now emerged that Scotland Yard had been monitoring Younis throughout the period the women went missing - and even visited his home while their bodies lay hidden.

The family of Ms Mustafa, a mother of three, are said to be appalled by the lack of rigour the force had shown in investigating her disappearance in May 2018, which has become the subject of an internal inquiry.

Ms Szucs, meanwhile, met her killer while she was in hospital receiving treatment for an alleged attempt on her life by a former partner who police were investigating.

She was said to be “extremely vulnerable”, but officers lost touch with her after she moved in with Younis and the planned trial against the ex-partner collapsed in June 2016.

The Hungarian national was seen for the last time just two months later, in August 2016.

Younis had repeated dealings with the Metropolitan Police for more than a decade, spanning the period when the body count in his flat rose from one to two.

He was subjected to routine visits and risk assessments since being added to the sex offenders register in 2007, but he was also reported to have contacted police about various complaints on 26 occasions.

Officers visited his flat on Vandome Close, Canning Town, to check up on him in November 2016, when Ms Szucs’s body was already hidden in a cupboard.

Younis bought a freezer from a branch of Curry's for £169.99 in the days that followed.

His home was visited again in July 2018 by the officers responsible for monitoring him, after Ms Mustafa,  a vulnerable drug addict with whom he was associated, vanished.

Her family claim they had passed police her old mobile phone, which showed she had been in contact with Younis on the last day it had been used in April. Her new handset was later found in his flat.

During their visit, officers asked Younis about Ms Mustafa and told him to report any sightings of her to the force.

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said the force’s directorate of professional standards was continuing to investigate how the case was handled.

“No officers are currently subject to restrictions,” the spokesman added.

Younis’s property was visited on two occasions by officers in December 2018 when he breached the conditions attached to being a registered sex offender.

It was not until April 2019 - when he was reported as a missing by an acquaintance - that officers visited his home to check on his welfare.

Det Ch Insp Simon Harding said one of the officers forced open the small, padlocked chest freezer in the flat on an “old-fashioned police hunch” and found what he thought was one body.

An x-ray of the appliance later revealed the grim reality - two murdered women had been stowed inside.

Younis was charged with murder and his trial at Southwark Crown Court heard he had a string of previous convictions for assaulting partners.

Among his extensive criminal history was a 30 month jail sentence for unlawful sexual activity with a child after he married a 14-year-old in an Islamic ceremony at a mosque in 2004.

The defendant initially admitted two counts of preventing a lawful burial and was found guilty on Thursday of two counts of murder.

Passing sentence, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said of Younis, who refused to leave his cell: "You are an arch-deceiver and you spent a lifetime destroying lives."

Lisa King, from Refuge, the domestic abuse charity, said questions needed to be answered about how the "horrific" case was handled by authorities.

She said: "Why weren’t the agencies and the professionals who have a duty to protect all women trained to spot the signs and support these women – how could they be left as missing and vulnerable to fall through the cracks?

"Why wasn’t Zahid Younis being monitored given his history of violence and abuse? Why wasn’t he identified as high risk?"

She added: “The system failed the victims when it should have protected and supported them.”

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said Younis was managed as a sex offender in accordance with policies, adding: "Offender managers responded promptly to all information relating to Younis and recorded their actions and decisions."