Clapham attack live: Suspect Abdul Ezedi was ‘very angry’ after sister was shot dead

The mother doused with a corrosive liquid in a horror attack in south London may lose the sight in her right eye, police have said.

Detectives told reporters that she had been left with significant facial injuries, which would likely remain for the rest of her life.

Ezedi, who is from Newcastle, is not the father of the children in the attack and was in the capital visiting the victim, police believe.

They still do not yet know why he meted out such extreme violence on the young family.

Retired Met Police detective Shabnam Chaudhri told the Independent that the police will be facing additional pressure now that the news of the King’s cancer has moved them away from the front page headlines.

She said: “The pressure now in the Met have is the King’s cancer diagnosis will completely divert people. They are under such pressure in terms of current news that topples Ezedi off the headlines and front pages of his picture. They are not going to get the media spotlight.

“After it goes to a week people start to lose faith in the Met thinking they are not doing their job when they really are.

“People move on to other news the focus is to keep public eye on the search.”

The Clapham chemical attack suspect was reportedly “very angry” and had vowed revenge after his sister was shot dead by armed robbers in his native Afghanistan, a friend has told MailOnline.

After coming to the UK in the back of a lorry in 2016, he began to work in a pizza takeaway in Tyneside and had been sending money back to his family.

His friend, who had formerly worked with him, said that in around 2017 or 2018 it became known that he had sent a large amount of money home and there had been a robbery.

He said: “His family fought back to defend their home and he told me that his sister was shot dead. He was so upset and very, very angry.

“He said that he would take revenge on the people who had done that to her. After what happened he was crying for three weeks and he said he wanted revenge.”

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• 00:15 – Ezedi’s vehicle is seen in Newcastle
• 06:30 – His vehicle is then seen traveling into Tooting, London
• 16:30 – A further sighting of his vehicle is confirmed in Croydon
• 19:00 – He is then seen driving in Streatham
• 19:25 – Attack takes place in Lessar Avenue, SW4, before Ezedi makes off in his vehicle which crashes nearby. He leaves the car and runs off.
• 19:33 – Ezedi boards a train at Clapham South Tube Station.
• 19:59 – He is then seen leaving that train at King’s Cross Tube Station.
• 20:42 – He is then seen on CCTV leaving Tesco where he buys water at 21 Caledonian Rd, London N1 9DX.
• 21:00 – Ezedi enters King’s Cross Tube Station and boards a Victoria Line tube southbound.
• 21:10 – He gets off at Victoria Tube Station and heads towards the district line and boards an eastbound train.
• 21:33 – Ezedi exits Tower Hill Tube Station.
• 21:47 – He is seen on Allhallows Lane, EC3

Speaking to the Independent, retired Met Police detective Shabnam Chaudhri hit out at misinformation online, saying: “There are lots of awful stuff on social media starting rumours he is hiding in a mosque but allegedly he is a Christian so he could be hiding in a church for all we know. All that nonsense.

“These people divert the public from the purpose of the investigation. They create divides and it doesn’t help the investigation it is frustrating for the police.

“The Met want to be inside the Afghan communities, they want Farsi speaking officers and to put leaflets out in a multitude of different languages to be able to track him down.

“But when the Far Right come out with the nonsense stuff it creates barriers from those who do want to help the police. They think ‘you don’t trust us so why should we help you and pass you information’.

“People don’t want to come forward they think no-one will believe us and they think we are harbouring this individual when we are trying to help root him out.”

Former Detective Superintendent Shabnam Chaudhri said: “I highly doubt that people traffickers are helping him.

“Not in a million years, you don’t get to know these people you pay them a significant amount of money to get you into a lorry and that’s all you ever have.

“They are not going to help one single person get back when there are 30,000 people paying them handsomely to put them on a boat across the Channel or in a lorry. He is irrelevant to them, I would stake quite a lot on that.”

Retired Detective Superintendent Shabnam Chaudhri, who worked for the Metropolitan Police for 30 years, told The Independent: ““The police have mentioned they think he may have taken his own life.

“The biggest telling thing about the latest police briefing was they need a mobile or financial footprint in order to track him. The last time he used bank stuff was when on CCTV.

“So either he has jumped in the Thames or he has a very trusted contact here who is allowing him to use their credit card details.”

In a press briefing on Thursday, the detectives leading the case said that Ezedi was last seen in the Southwark Bridge area at 9.50pm after exiting Tower Hill station at 9.33pm.

Bishop Guli, who came to the UK aged just 13 in the wake of the Iranian Revolution some 40 years ago, branded the Clapham attack “shocking and brutal”.

She added: “Because the alleged perpetrator has been reported as someone seeking asylum in the UK on grounds of conversion to Christianity, some, including senior politicians, have questioned the role of churches and other faiths in supporting those who seek our help and protection here.”

She said that as a Christian leader she makes “no apology for our involvement in supporting people who are often deeply vulnerable and traumatised”.

The bishop added: “But churches have no power to circumvent the Government’s duty to vet and approve applications – the responsibility for this rests with the Home Office.”

She said religious ministers from all denominations occasionally provide statements of support to people seeking asylum, “but it is wrong to think of this as some sort of magic ticket”.

She added: “The notion that a person may be fast-tracked through the asylum system, aided and abetted by the Church is simply inaccurate.”

Rishi Sunak insisted he had reformed the asylum system “every which way I can” amid questions over how a sex offender suspected of carrying out a chemical attack remained in the UK.

The Government had already taken action to stop people trying to “game the system”, Downing Street said, as pressure mounted on ministers to explain how Abdul Ezedi was allowed to stay in the country years after being convicted of sexual assault and exposure.

Home Secretary James Cleverly is understood to have asked for the facts of Ezedi’s case as he examines whether there are flaws in the asylum system and considers whether changes to the rules need to be made.

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