Sheffield Crown Court heard that Hassan Jhangur mowed down Good Samaritan Chris Marriott after arriving at a wedding brawl outside his sister’s wedding reception
A driver who killed a Good Samaritan and injured four other people embroiled in a wedding brawl when he hit them with his car uttered eight chilling as he was apprehended, a court has heard.
Hassan Jhangur hit five people with his car when he arrived at his sister’s wedding in the Burngreave area of Sheffield on December 27, 2023, after a “family disupte” spilled into the road outside the reception. Among the group hit by the 25-year-old was 46-year-old Chris Marriott, who had stopped at the scene to help one of Jhangur’s sisters after the brawl exploded onto the streets. A trial at Sheffield Crown Court has heard Jhangur recounted the incident to police in a chilling eight-word boast.
Jurors heard that Jhangur had driven into the father of the rival Khan family as he stood in the street, throwing him over the bonnet of his Seat Ibiza. The driver then crashed into a group of four people, among them Good Samaritan Mr Marriott, who was attending to one of Jhangur’s sisters as she lay in the road.
The court was told that the crash killed Mr Marriott and injured the remaining three, including Jhangur’s own mother and sister, and off-duty midwife Alison Norris, who had also gone to help. The court was told that the defendant then got out of the car and stabbed Hasan Khan, his new brother-in-law, several times.
The court heard he later chillingly admitted to police officers who had taken him to the police station: “That’s why you don’t mess with the Jhangurs.”
Jhangur, of Whiteways Road, Sheffield, denies the murder and manslaughter of Mr Marriott but has pleaded guilty to causing Mr Marriott’s death by dangerous driving. Prosecutor Jason Pitter KC argued that Jhangur is guilty of murder because he intended “at the very least to cause really serious harm”by using his car as a weapon.
He said that although Jhangur’s target may have been the Khan family, “the law says your intentions can be transferred from one person to another, even if he did not intend to hit that particular person”.
Mr Pitter said the “public spirit” of Mr Marriott and Ms Norris “brought them unwittingly into the midst of a family dispute”, with the morning wedding between Amaani Jhangur and Hasan Khan appearing to “have been at the heart of the tension”. Richard Thyne KC, defending, told the jury his client’s guilty plea to the charge of causing death by dangerous driving was an admission that what he did was “unquestionably dangerous” and this was a serious offence.
He told the jury: “What we fundamentally dispute on behalf of Hassan Jhangur is that you can be sure this was a deliberate collision.” Mr Thyne said that although the “unintended consequences” of Jhangur’s dangerous driving were “terrible”, “it was neither murder nor was it manslaughter”.
The barrister said that, contrary to the prosecution case that his client was “fired up” and “looking for trouble” when he got out of the car following the collision, Jhangur was “in shock and was concerned”.
He told the jury that it was Hasan Khan who was “looking for trouble” and was armed with a baseball bat – a claim the prosecution disputes. Jhangur has admitted causing serious injury to Alison Norris, Ambreen Jhangur, Nafeesa Jhangur and Riasat Khan by dangerous driving, but also pleaded not guilty to four charges of causing grievous bodily harm with intent.
He denies attempting to murder Hasan Khan and wounding him with intent. The jury was sent out to consider its verdicts by the judge, Mr Justice Morris, on Wednesday after he completed his summing-up of the trial.