A man has been arrested for murder after a woman died at a house in Hove.
Ambulance crews were called to Tredcroft Road at about 11pm last night (Wednesday 28 January) where they found a 67-year-old woman, named locally as Memona Hashimalvi, in urgent need of treatment.
She died at the scene and detectives from the Surrey and Sussex Major Crime Team are now investigating this as a murder.
A 75-year-old Hove man was arrested on suspicion of murder and is currently in police custody. He was named locally as Abdul Khaliq Qureshi, a director of the Brighton Mosque and Muslim Community Centre, also known as the Al Quds Mosque, in Dyke Road, Brighton.
One neighbour said: “They were a very quiet couple. We didn’t see them much. They kept themselves to themselves.”
Anyone with information which may be of help is asked to phone Sussex Police on 101 or email 101@sussex.pnn.police.uk.
I would very much like to know why the suspect has been named? This is extremely disrespectful to the family of the deceased and suggests highly shoddy journalism. It is a matter for the police to name any suspects before your newspaper should be publishing such information online, especially when a post-mortem has not even been held to determine cause of death.
I’m sorry that you find it disrespectful, Marie. It’s not intended to be. Thankfully, we don’t live in a police state where only official sources are allowed to decide what is published. Our aim is to provide early and accurate information in the public interest. There are other people living in Tredcroft Road, some of whom may have fallen under suspicion unfairly as a result of the names being withheld. You will, I hope, be pleased to learn that Memona Hashimalvi died from natural causes. Abdul Qureshi has been freed. Again, we published this as soon as we knew – and respectfully.
Frank, that is not a good enough apology. Freedom of information and good journalism comes with a code of ethics which you did not adhere to. You do not need a police state to have common decency and morals. Why was it relevant for you to name him and how was it even remotely relevant that he works at the Brighton mosque? The other people living in Tredcroft Road were not under suspicion, that is absurd. The fact that you have placed the feelings of some random neighbours above the family’s is totally irresponsible. Yours is the only source that used the word murder, the police did not and neither did any other papers. You have caused unneccessary grief for the family and should feel ashamed. This is NOT ethical journalism.
Sussex Police issued a public statement to say that they had arrested a 75-year-old man on suspicion of murder. It is in the public interest to publish people’s details when they are taken away by the state, even when the reasons are right and proper. In other countries, people disappear. We do not have a society as open as America, for example, when it comes to the public record. But we are more open than some. When anonymous information is given out, there is a danger that the innocent could be unfairly tarnished. I find your comments about my decency, ethics and morals quite offensive. I am happy to debate with you why openness, transparency and accountability in these matters is right and proper and I respect your right to disagree with me.
Did you really just write that I will be PLEASED to hear that Memona died of natural causes?! Do you have any human decency? Please have some empathy and think about what you write before you write it.
You should have waited for the results of the autopsy before scaremongering and causing unneccessary grief. Perhaps try thinking about the situation as if it were your own family first. Empathise. Have respect.
And don’t drag people’s jobs or religious beliefs into it when it is completely irrelevant.
It is not scaremongering to say that a man has been arrested on suspicion of murder. It is fact. Yes, I did say pleased – and for two reasons. I believe that it is better to have a natural death when the time comes than to be murdered. And because the findings of the post-mortem tests cleared Mr Qureshi of the suspicion of murder in the minds of those officers who took the decision to arrest him. The deaths of many people and the anxieties around the reasons for those deaths are the subject of many reports – and conversations – by many newspapers, broadcasters, websites and private individuals. That has been the case for many years. The consequences of your approach would be chilling in a society that values free speech and does not just allow the state to arrest people anonymously and let them disappear. Mr Qureshi’s position in relation to the mosque was mentioned to help identify him more clearly to meet the terms set out in defamation judgments in this country. There is no lack of empathy in our reports and I am only sorry that it appears to you that there is.
I have since found the police statement and can see you copied and pasted it into your article so I apologise that I was mistaken in that respect. My other comments still stand. I would ask you to have more respect when handling future situations such as this.