Police officer threatened to stab woman and set mother's house on fire
PC Tariq Mahmood was found guilty of kicking one of his victims on the body and acting in an abusive manner towards a second woman, who was pregnant.
The charges against Mahmood, 45, stated that he repeatedly blamed one of his victims for their not having children together, and accused her of having an affair. He threatened to set fire to his partner's mother's home and spread lies that her step-father was a child molester.
Mahmood told the second woman that he would 'strangle or stab' her as she slept and threatened to take the couple's child away from her.
The woman said Mahmood constantly criticised her parenting skills, made derogatory remarks about her clothes and looks and accused of her of dressing to impress other men.
She also claimed Mahmood refused to speak to her if she did not have sex with him and only complimented her when she wore traditional Asian clothing during two years of abuse between December 2019 and November 2021.
The woman, also a serving police officer at the time, told Edinburgh sheriff court that she was so terrified by his behaviour after they split up that she changed the locks at her home and slept with a metal bar across the front door.
Mahmood, from Livingston, West Lothian, denied the allegations but was found guilty of abusing the woman this year. He was also found guilty of engaging in a course of behaviour that was abusive towards the other former partner by shouting, swearing and assaulting her, all between April 2019 and February 2022.
Sheriff John Cook told Mahmood on Wednesday that he had committed 'serious offences' but said there was an alternative to custody. Cook sentenced the officer to a two-year supervision order and said he must complete 120 hours of unpaid work.
The sheriff also ordered Mahmood to attend sessions with the domestic abuse organisation Up2U and imposed non-harassment orders regarding both women for four years.
Edith Forrest KC, representing Mahmood, said her client continued to 'maintain his denial' of the offences but he wanted to apologise to both victims. She that Mahmood, who joined the police in Birmingham in 2008 and transferred to Police Scotland ten years later, planned to resign from the force.
One of Mahmood's victims told the court that she met him while they were both serving police officers. They formed a relationship and she became pregnant in December 2019.
Mahmood formed an instant hatred of her mother and step-father, she said, threatened to burn down their house and claimed the step-father was a paedophile.
When the couple's child was born Mahmood became 'controlling' and 'unpredictable'. The woman said: 'I told him he was coercive and he didn't like that at all. I knew he was using [the child] as a control measure and he just wanted me to know [the child] was his.
'He was shocked I had pointed out that. We were both police officers and both had training in coercive control and domestic abuse.'
The woman said Mahmood had also threatened to take the child away from her after the couple had split in September 2021.
She said: 'I took [the child] to my grans house to stop him taking her to Birmingham because he said she would be better off with his family. I wasn't sure if he was going to take her to Pakistan, where he had family.
'I was terrified he was going to take her and I would never see her again. I was really scared of him.'
She told the court: 'He said he would strangle me or stab me in my sleep, then pass it off as a joke. I was scared of him, really scared of him. I was scared what he was capable of.
'I was scared I would wake up one day and he would be at the bottom of my bed. He tried to break me when I was at my lowest point.'
Chief Superintendent Helen Harrison, of Police Scotland, said: 'Mahmood's actions go against everything Police Scotland stands for.
'Our thoughts are with the victims and I hope this conviction provides them with some measure of closure. I commend their strength in reporting these crimes and bringing this individual to justice.'
Scottish Women's Aid said: 'This is a heart-breaking example of what happens to so many women.
'Children and women have told us for decades that coercive and controlling behaviours and the domination of everyday life are the most traumatic abuse and the hardest to recover from.
'The Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018 makes coercive control a crime, but our justice system fails survivors every day when it continues to minimise the impact of abuse if it doesn't involve a physical injury. One of the terrible consequences is sentences that do not reflect the harm and trauma caused by abusers.'
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