Life sentence for son who strangled mum to death with mobility scooter cord

A son who strangled his mother to death with the electrical cord from her mobility scooter after she threatened to throw him out was jailed for life today (weds).

Onees Khatoon, 71, had phoned her other son to tell him she did not want Majid Butt, 51, living with her anymore and ‘was fed up with him bossing her about’.

Butt told his brother he would try to make up with his ‘horrible’ mother but shortly afterwards he killed her at her home in Gade Close, Hayes, west London, on 13 May.

‘He did so by strangling her with an electrical cord,’ said prosecutor Tom Little, QC.

‘The electrical cord was one which was used to charge her mobility scooter.’

Butt then made his way to Hayes Police Station and told an officer: ‘I came here to confess that I have strangled my mother.

‘We had an argument this morning, she told me she was going to sell the house and make me homeless.’

The killer said: ‘My mother she was horrible, a horrible woman’.

Police officers found Ms Khatoon lying on the living room floor with two pillows over her head and the scooter’s charger cord ‘wrapped several times around her neck’.

Butt remained at the police station where he described his mother as ‘a horrible person’ and ‘not a loving conventional mother,’ said Mr Little.

‘He stated that his mother was quite seriously ill and that she did not appreciate him looking after her and never said thank you.

‘The defendant stated that the deceased had threatened to kick him out of the address and make him homeless again.

‘He stated: ‘I just lost my temper, she wouldn’t listen, she kept making another threat, you know when anger just takes over. I cannot take it anymore.”

Asked whether he got really angry, Butt added: ‘Yes. I just had red mist. I remember seeing an extension lead, I just wanted to strangle her.’

When interviewed he explained that it was after his mother told him she wanted to get him out and make him homeless again, sell the house and look after her three children, deliberately excluding him being the eldest of four from any future inheritance, that caused him to ‘lose control’.

Mr Little told the court Butt has a number of previous convictions, almost all for dishonesty matters, dating back to when he was a juvenile in 1986 through to 1993.

The court also heard that the police had been called numerous times in the past about arguments between Butt and his mother, starting in January 2008.

The following May, Butt called Ms Khatoon a ‘bitch’, threatened to kill her and chucked a vase at the wall during a row over probate following his father’s suicide.

In February last year Ms Khatoon dialled 999 to report that her son was refusing to leave her address, saying ‘she was scared of him and that he was very controlling’.

But no further action was taken after she refused to provide a statement.

Butt admitted murder last week.

His barrister, Joe Stone QC, read out a two-page letter he penned in his prison cell while on remand at Belmarsh Prison.

He apologised for the ‘trauma’ he inflicted on his family and begged for their forgiveness.

Butt began by expressing his ‘upmost and deepfelt remorse’ for the ‘hurt, upset and pain that I have caused’.

‘None of my family should have to go through such trauma caused by my moment of madness,’ he said.

‘I hope and pray to God that with time my family can find it in their hearts to forgive me.’

Mr Stone said the killing was ‘very much a spontaneous act’ after learning he would be made homeless for the third time and explained how Butt had lived with his mother for 41 of his 51 years.

‘The true picture is not of a son who disliked his mother,’ he added.

‘The true picture is of a tragic and spontaneous incident triggered in highly charged, emotional circumstances where the background is he loved his mother and cared for her over a substantial period of time.’

Judge Nicholas Cooke QC today (weds) jailed Butt for life with a minimum term of 15 years and 10 months.

‘No sentence I can pass can undo the consequences of what you did,’ he told the murderer.

‘What you did do, killing your own mother, the person who brought you into this life, was an act of unusual wickedness.’

Judge Cooke added: ‘Everyone owes a duty to care for and to protect their mother.

‘You breached that duty in the most emphatic way.

‘She was vulnerable in her own home; not only because of her age, but also because of her medical condition. She was 71.’

Bald and bearded Butt, of Hayes, Middlesex, admitted murdering his mother

He was jailed for life and ordered to serve a minimum term of 15 years and 10 months.

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