Domestic abuser followed victim to Rotherham refuge hotel and stabbed her with broken pint glass

A domestic abuser followed his victim to her refuge hotel where he beat her with a pint glass and used it to stab her.
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Shamas Zahid, of Ward Street, Dewsbury, had already caused a woman he was in a relationship with to flee from him in August 2020 when she took refuge at a Rotherham hotel.

But the 31-year-old coerced her into telling him where she was before tracking her down and viciously wounding her while she was isolated from friends and family in a late-night incident.

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Sheffield Crown Court heard at his sentencing on Thursday, November 25 how police were called when another guest at the hotel heard a knock at their door – and found the young woman covered in blood.

Shamas Zahid, 31, of Ward Street, Dewsbury, followed his domestic abuse victim to her refuge hotel in Rotherham and stabbed her with a broken pint glass.Shamas Zahid, 31, of Ward Street, Dewsbury, followed his domestic abuse victim to her refuge hotel in Rotherham and stabbed her with a broken pint glass.
Shamas Zahid, 31, of Ward Street, Dewsbury, followed his domestic abuse victim to her refuge hotel in Rotherham and stabbed her with a broken pint glass.

“She told the other guest that you had come at her with a glass,” Recorder Mrs Megan Rhys told Zahid in sentencing.

"You had hit her in the head with a pint glass and used the broken stem to stab her in the chest.”

Police had already been alerted that an incident had taken place after other guests heard screams from the woman’s room and phoned the hotel’s front desk.

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The judge said: “When police attended, she said you had come at her with a glass, and that she had begged you to stop because she thought you would kill her.”

Staff found blood and broken glass in the young woman’s room. Her smashed mobile phone was also found outside the window in the car park.

Zahid had already fled the scene. He later phoned the hotel pretending to be his victim’s relative to ‘ask how she was’. He was arrested in the vicinity of the hotel at around 4am that night.

Meanwhile, the woman was taken to hospital where she required surgery for her wounds.

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Zahid was released on bail and warned not to contact the woman, but the two maintained fraught, confrontational contact in the months afterwards.

This included an incident in November 2020, when Zahid reportedly assaulted an emergency worker who attended the woman’s address after she made an aborted 999 call, again because of Zahid.

The court heard that some of the contact between the two was ‘two-way’, but Zahid was warned by the judge in sentencing that any and all contact with the woman had to stop, even if that meant ignoring her messages.

Zahid pleaded guilty to wounding in relation to the incident at the hotel.

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Recorder Rhys said: “You knew that she was vulnerable and lonely.

"You knew she was isolated from her family at that time.

"You appear to have no insight into the impact on your victims.

"However, I have read that you have potentially begun to have remorse for your actions.

"This was a nasty offence set against a background of abusive behaviour.

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"In my judgement, this offence is so serious it can only be met with a custody sentence of immediate imprisonment.”

Zahid was sentenced to 30 months in prison and prevented from making contact with his victim.