This is the moment a shocked passer-by dialled 999 to reveal a woman had fallen from Arthur’s Seat in Scotland, as revealed in the latest episode of a Channel 4 true crime murder show.
Fawziyah Javed was thrown 50ft off the cliff in September 2021 by Kashif Anwar after she had suffered a horrific campaign of abuse.
Ms Javed, who helped jail her partner from beyond the grave by collecting evidence of the abuse she was subjected to by Anwar, was told by him just months before: ‘The sooner you’re dead or the sooner you’re out of my life, it’ll be better.’
Anwar, from Leeds, was jailed for at least 20 years after being found guilty of the 31-year-old’s murder during a trial at the High Court in Edinburgh.
Now new recordings reveal the moment a passer-by called the emergency services after Ms Javed was pushed off the cliff.
Kashif Anwar was jailed for a minimum of 20 years for murdering his wife Fawziyah Javed
Fawziyah Javed was thrown 50ft off Arthur’s Seat by Kashif Anwar after a campaign of abuse
Kashif Anwar’s mistreatment of his wife is now given fresh scrutiny by a Channel 4 doc
The footage features in a new Channel 4 documentary called The Push: Murder on The Cliff, which tells the story of the case.
The witness revisited the trauma of the ordeal when he later told a court: ‘I heard a scream.’
The recording of his 999 call was revealed, in which he told emergency services operators: ‘We’re up on Arthur’s seat near the top of it.
‘We heard someone screaming and there’s a guy here, he says his wife has fallen off of the edge, I think? The more vertical side.’
The new programme shows 29-year-old Anwar in court with his head bowed as the jury’s verdict is returned and he is sentenced by judge Lord Beckett last April.
The footage also reveals the final words of Ms Javed to the passer-by before she died after falling off the Edinburgh landmark.
Daniyah Rafique, 24, managed to reach the dying employment lawyer on the side of the hill, where she was told: ‘Don’t let my husband near me, he pushed me.’
Javed died a short time later.
Alex Prentice, lead prosecutor in the case, said evidence collated by the victim in the months leading up to the murder was crucial to securing a conviction.
Javed had secretly recorded phone calls of Anwar threatening her and went to the police twice so that there was a record of his abusive behaviour, although she didn’t want them to intervene at that point.
The second police report was made just days before Anwar killed the employment lawyer from Leeds on a weekend away to Edinburgh.
Anwar took her to the hillside beauty spot in the evening of September 2 and Javed died at 10.18pm that night.
A recording Javed made on her phone in April 2021 of two calls with her husband was played in court.
In one, Anwar rages at Javed: ‘Who the f*** do you think you are?. You’re a disease in everyone’s life.’
Fawziyah Javed was thrown off Arthur’s Seat (pictured) in September 2021
Fawziyah Javed, who helped jail her abusive husband thanks to recordings from beyond the grave, is pictured here on her graduation day
The new series was commissioned by Channel 4’s head of documentaries Alisa Pomeroy and directed by Anna Hall (Pictured: The High Court in Edinburgh)
On the next call, the same evening, Javed pleads: ‘Do I not have a say in how I want my life with you?’
‘You’re being a bitch,’ her husband tells her. ‘Why the f*** are you not listening to me? You’re not a man, so start behaving like a woman.
‘Why the f*** did you decide to ruin my f***ing life? I tell you one thing – you end this and I’ll ruin yours. You know what, Fawziyah? I mean it.’
Speaking in the new Channel 4 documentary, which was granted access to the trial earlier this year, Mr Prentice added: ‘Fawziyah collected a great deal of evidence which formed the pillar of the prosecution case.
‘The evidence of what Fawziyah said was crucial. It was effectively Fawziyah speaking to the jury.
‘I have prosecuted many murder cases over the course of my career but for a variety of reasons this case is extraordinary.’
Asked whether Anwar would have been found guilty without Fawziyah’s evidence, he said: ‘It would have been very difficult.’
A friend and legal colleague of Fawziyah called Ingrid added: ‘She built this massive mountain of evidence culminating with giving a statement to the police on the verge of her dying.
‘The fact she was a lawyer with all the legal training, I do think she must have thought about leaving this evidence behind. I remember feeling like she died like a lawyer.’
After the jury retired to consider its verdict, the programme shows Fawziyah’s mother Yasmin Javed telling how she fears Anwar will be acquitted and kill again.
She said: ‘He has got to be punished. He can’t do this to another family, I can’t have another family going through this.’
And in a subsequent interview with The Sunday Times of Scotland, she said: ‘Fawziyah was articulate, clever, strong-minded – and very intelligent and financially independent. She had the full support of her parents.
‘She had somewhere to go. A lot of women in these situations don’t have anything like that.
‘Fawziyah did and she was making plans to leave him, so if it can happen to her, it can happen to absolutely anybody. Nobody is immune from this.’
Fawziyah’s mother Yasmin Javed (pictured) feared Anwar would be acquitted and kill again
Yasmin Javed (pictured) said Anwar ‘had to be punished’ for his actions
The mugshot of Kashif Anwar, 29, from Leeds
Another 999 call is also played in the documentary in which Anwar tells an operator his wife had slipped on Arthur’s Seat and that he tried to save her.
He said: ‘Fawziyah’s just on the edge of the cliff, man. We both just slipped, I tried grabbing her arm and she fell.
‘We both technically slipped and then I tried grabbing her arm and she went sideways.’
Det Insp Bob Williamson from Police Scotland, who was in charge of inquiries into Javed’s fall, said deaths like hers were very difficult to investigate.
He said: ‘When there is only one person who truly knows what happened and they choose to lie, the investigation then relies on largely circumstantial evidence.
‘When there is only one person who truly knows what happened and they choose to lie, the investigation then relies on largely circumstantial evidence.’
Sentencing Anwar earlier this year, Lord Beckett said he had committed a ‘wicked crime’ and had showed no remorse.
He told him: ‘She was willing to trust that you would keep her safe when she agreed to accompany you on your project to climb Arthur’s Seat despite a fear of heights and being pregnant. She was entitled to expect your protection and support.
‘As a result of your actions, Fawziyah Javed died far from home on a Scottish hillside and her loving family are left devastated and will never be the same again.
‘Had she lived she would have given birth to your child some months later, but that life was also extinguished by you.’
The new series was commissioned by Channel 4’s head of documentaries Alisa Pomeroy and directed by Anna Hall.
Ms Pomeroy said: ‘To tell Fawziyah’s story in this way, with her family bravely sharing what is an unimaginably painful time for them, is both a great privilege and a great responsibility. No woman should have to suffer an abusive relationship.
‘Shining a light on this heart-breaking case is important for many reasons, and I hope that other women suffering in a similar way might find strength in seeing this film to make a lifesaving change in their own life.
‘The access gained by Anna and the team at Candour to make this series is unique and I have no doubt they will honour Fawziyah’s memory, showing how her killer was brought to justice.’
Alex Prentice (pictured) said Fawziyah’s evidence was crucial to securing a conviction
Fawziyah Javed’s father, shown in court, as his daughter’s killer Fawziyah Javed was jailed
Ms Hall said: ‘It’s been such a privilege to see the process of justice played out minute by minute at Edinburgh High Court and it’s been an utter privilege to work with Fawziyah’s large and loving family who are destroyed by what has happened to her.
‘I find myself making another film about a woman who was on the verge of leaving an abusive relationship – the most dangerous time for any woman – and I want to weep. How many more women will be killed at the hands of their abusive partners?
‘But I know we will all learn so many vitally important things which helped to convict her abuser.’
The Push: Murder on the Cliff will air on Channel 4 this Sunday and Monday at 9pm.
