Woman jailed over captive relatives

Naseebah Bibi, 63, would not let the women leave the family home in Blackburn, Lancashire, without her permission, Preston Crown Court heard.

One of her victims told detectives she was forced to work on an industrial sewing machine day and night for 13 years.

Bibi, of Pringle Street, was convicted by a jury at Preston Crown Court last month of falsely imprisoning Nagina Akhtar between 1993 and 2006, Tazeem Akhtar from 2001 to 2003 and Nisbah Akhtar between 2005 and 2007.

All three women were brought to the UK following arranged marriages to Bibi's three sons but were subjected to beatings and abuse from her after they arrived.

Sentencing her, Judge Robert Brown said it was evident that her victims were "traumatised by you both physically and psychologically and spent long periods living in fear".

He ordered that Bibi serve three-and-a-half years of her sentence in prison before she would be allowed out on licence and would then need to be monitored for up to nine years from the start of her custodial sentence.

He said: "It seems to be necessary in the public interest that you should be subject to a long period of supervision after you are released from prison so that your situation and that in your household can be monitored.

"At the same time because of your poor health and in particular your mental health I shall keep the custodial element of sentence as short as I can, consistent with my duty to punish you, to deter you from further offences and to protect the public."

The court heard that a fourth woman had been betrothed to one of her sons and that she had been destined to live in the Bibi household but Judge Brown said he would pass on the information to the immigration authorities.