Tragedy 'beggars belief'

The grieving family of murdered teenager Zahid Mubarek today accused the Prison Service of "catastrophic failures" which led to his death.

They said it "beggars belief " that he was forced to share a cell with known violent racist Robert Stewart, who battered him to death with a table leg.

And they spoke of how the tragedy had taken their close-knit family through "every emotion from numb incomprehension, shock and anger to desperation and despair".

Stewart is serving life for murdering Mr Mubarek at Feltham Young Offender Institution in 2000. Both were 19 at the time of the attack.

The family was making its opening statement at a public inquiry into the killing, which is being held after the victim's uncle, Imtiaz Amin, went all the way to the House of Lords to overturn opposition from Home Secretary David Blunkett.

The family's counsel, Patrick O'Connor, told the inquiry the murder could have been prevented if 26 mistakes, mostly by the prison service, had not been made.

He revealed that at the time of the murder, Stewart was facing charges over the racist harassment of an adult chatline operator - a fact which should have alerted prison staff to the threat he posed.

He sent abusive letters to the white London woman calling her a "nigger-loving slag" with "nigger kids", but was charged with simple harassment rather than racially-motivated harassment, and a box on his Crown Prosecution Service file indicating whether the charge was racially-motivated was never ticked.

Mr O'Connor added that Stewart's past record of violence, racism and personality disorder had not been properly recorded by staff at other prisons, and that Feltham staff failed to read Stewart's file before allocating him to a shared cell. A search of the cell had failed to discover the broken table leg later used as a murder weapon; a request by Mr Mubarek to change cells had been ignored; and an underlying problem with race relations at Feltham was never addressed.

The Mubarek family, of Walthamstow, questioned why Zahid was ever sent to prison. He was murderedhours before he was due to be freed after a three-month sentence for stealing razor blades worth £6 and interfering with a vehicle.

Magistrates ordered him to be locked up for what was his first time when he failed to turn up for community punishments, probably because of his addiction to hard drugs. Stewart was serving only two months, even though he had a criminal record going back to the age of 13 including actual bodily harm, burglary, theft, criminal damage and arson.

The inquiry's counsel, Nigel Giffen, yesterday described 14 "missed opportunities" to prevent the murder. The inquiry's chairman, Mr Justice Keith, will weigh the evidence and report next year.

Mr O'Connor said: "At the heart of this premeditated murder was the colour of Zahid Mubarek's skin."

A month before the murder, Stewart had sent a letter - found after the killing - saying if he didn't get bail he'd take "extreme measures to get shipped out, kill me f***ing padmate [cellmate] if I have to."

The inquiry continues.