'We never got justice': LBC caller hits out at Qatar’s ‘farcical’ courts over 10 years after his stepdaughter’s killing
4 December 2024, 11:14 | Updated: 4 December 2024, 11:19
The stepfather of a young British woman who was killed by a man in Qatar over ten years ago has hit out at the country's 'farcical' judicial system.
Listen to this article
Loading audio...
Kevin Crotty rang LBC and told Nick Ferrari of the family's anguish years after Lauren Patterson was stabbed and raped by a Qatari man in 2013.
Lauren, 23, from West Malling, was working in Doha when she disappeared following a night out.
Badr Hashim Khamis Abdallah Al-Jabr was convicted and sentenced to death but his sentence was later reduced to a 10-year jail term.
After she was killed, Lauren's body was taken into the desert and set alight, in an attempt to hide the evidence.
He said: "They took her body and dumped it in the desert."
Her body was burned on charcoal bricks with the help of accomplice Mohamed Abdallah Hassan Abdul Aziz, who was later jailed for three years.
Her stepfather told LBC that the family "would have never have found her" in the desert had it not been for falconers who uncovered her remains in a remote location.
Mr Crotty told Nick Ferrari: "We never got justice."
He told LBC of his disappointment that despite repeat attempts to speak to senior figures in Qatar, they never received any reply.
He said: "Their justice system is just something else."
Mrs Patterson told MailOnline last year: "I respected their justice system in the hope her killer would be rightfully punished, but ten years on I don't really know what's happened to al-Jabr.
"They won't tell us so we are assuming that means he's out. If he was still in prison they would have told us.
"I've asked the British Consulate for information but they don't know either.
"We feel let down because the British Government has poured money into other high-profile murders abroad but we've had little or no help."
Mr Crotty and his wife met the Attorney General and the Chief of Police for help.
He said "we were promised the world" but never got justice, adding that his wife wrote to the Prime Minister twice, but got no reply, leaving his wife "distraught".
He added: "We haven't even had the curtesy from his press office for a reply."
Caller whose stepdaughter was killed by a Qatari man criticises the country's judicial system
But Mr Crotty said he understood why Britain needed to host the Emir of Qatar - to encourage economic growth in the UK.
He said: "As much as I hate it, I understand it."
After an appeal against the sentence failed in 2019, Miss Patterson's mother told the BBC Al-Jabr could be released in months.
Alison Patterson said: "There is the possibility that he could stay in another four years, but there is also the possibility he could get off for good behaviour.
"Also in Qatar, twice a year they pardon prisoners. So for example he could be pardoned this December on their national day. So he could be out within a couple of months."
Mrs Patterson said at the time the family wanted the sentence to revert back to the death penalty.
She said: "The death sentence is something they haven't enacted out there I think in years, but I was far happier with that outcome, because then I knew he would remain in prison for life."
She added: "I feel sick, angry, but worst of all, I feel I've let my daughter down."
