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A 27-year-old British Pakistani man from Sparkbrook has been sentenced to five years and ten months in prison at Birmingham Crown Court after his wife secretly filmed him issuing direct death threats during a sustained physical assault. Rayan Mughal, of Sparkbrook, Birmingham, pleaded guilty to multiple violent offences after his partner, Mariyyah Raees, captured undeniable mobile phone footage inside her Birmingham flat that documented severe domestic violence, recurring strangulation, and a fractured thumb. The court ordered immediate detention alongside an expansive seven-year restraining order to safeguard Ms Raees following three years of escalating terror that came to a definitive end in late 2025.
Daily Dazzling Dawn understands that the couple had been together for three years under an Islamic marriage, during which the domestic environment deteriorated into habitual intimidation and physical abuse. Opening the Crown’s case, prosecutor Sarah Allen described the relationship as deeply toxic, noting that Mughal was in the regular habit of assaulting and demeaningly mistreating his wife. While the prolonged abuse was persistent, prosecutors highlighted three specific, catastrophic incidents across 2025 that formed the core of the criminal indictment and illustrated an escalating pattern of domestic violence.
The first severe incident outlined in court occurred on 20 March 2025, when an argument over clothing escalated into an unprovoked, prolonged attack. Daily Dazzling Dawn learned that Mughal grabbed Ms Raees by the throat, intermittently strangling her for ten minutes while landing punches across her body. Ms Raees felt unable to alert law enforcement at the time due to intense fear of retribution, compounded by Mughal pleading with her not to contact authorities while threatening self-harm to manipulate her compliance.
The violence re-emerged on 26 May 2025 while Ms Raees was hosting a personal friend at her home. Mughal summoned her into the bedroom, where he slapped her, threatened to shatter a glass bottle across her head, and violently gripped her thumb. He pulled and dragged her by the joint with sufficient force to snap the bone, continuing to rain down blows inside the room. The assault was halted only when the visiting friend screamed in horror, compelling Mughal to stop and allowing Ms Raees to later secure medical radiography confirming a severe fracture to her thumb.
The final attack occurred on 8 October 2025, when Mughal bashed his wife's head against a sofa, pinned her down, stripped her naked, and gripped her throat once more. Believing that she would not survive the encounter, Ms Raees managed to activate the camera on her mobile phone to ensure evidence remained if she died. The court viewed the distressing three-minute recording, in which Ms Raees sobbed in agony as Mughal bellowed that he was going to murder her, insisted that no man would ever love her, and claimed she deserved to be cheated on.
Ms Raees managed to summon her mother to the property, whose arrival interrupted the violence and allowed the victim to contact the police immediately. Investigators gathered medical photographs depicting distinct finger marks on her neck, deep bodily contusions, and the clinical X-rays of her broken thumb to substantiate the charges brought forward by the Crown Prosecution Service.
Appearing via live video link from HMP Birmingham, Mughal listened as Ms Raees delivered a powerful victim impact statement directly from the court witness box. She told the court that living with Mughal was a constant waiting game between escalating, dehumanising assaults, recounting recurring panic attacks, chronic head trauma stemming from strangulation, and three weeks of displacement from her flat due to sheer terror. Ms Raees told journalists she chose to place her experience on the public record to provide courage to other women trapped in abusive marriages who fear coming forward to statutory services.
Mughal initially denied all allegations, but before a jury could be sworn in for trial, he entered formal guilty pleas to two counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, one count of inflicting grievous bodily harm, intentional strangulation, and making threats to kill. Additional counts, including coercive and controlling behaviour, were ordered to lie on the file. Defending barrister Emily Waggott submitted that Mughal was remorseful, arguing that his conduct was triggered by an inability to cope with his closeted bisexuality, which produced profound cultural shame within his traditional background. The defence presented more than thirty character references, pointing to his university education and internal mentoring roles while on remand.
Rejecting any mitigation sufficient to warrant non-custodial rehabilitation, the judiciary imposed a sentence of five years and ten months' imprisonment. Furthermore, a strict seven-year restraining order was enacted to bar Mughal from contacting Ms Raees, concluding a legal battle that brought critical digital evidence to the forefront of domestic violence prosecutions in the West Midlands.
