• Deaf woman killed after a night with strangers
• Suspect pushes her from a car and beats her to death

At a court in Old Bailey, UK, it was reported that a deaf woman was killed in a “callous attack” following a night she spent with a group of strangers.

The court stated that Zahwa Mukhtar, 27, was thrown from a car and assaulted by Duane Oso Rumford in East London during the early hours of August 16 last year.

Opening the trial, prosecutor Henrietta Paget described the case as a “senseless killing of a vulnerable young woman.”

Oso, nicknamed “Nasty” and from Dagenham, denies murder and claims the alternative charge of manslaughter.

Paget told the jury: “This was a callous attack. Mr. Oso’s behavior toward the victim was full of total contempt, as shown by his later actions and words.”

Mukhtar was described as a “bright, cheerful, and enthusiastic” young woman who worked as a finance assistant at the Young Vic Theatre in Waterloo. She had been completely deaf since age three due to meningitis but had adapted well using lip reading and British Sign Language.

The court noted that Oso, 36, had attended a party in Hackney with acquaintances from Dagenham before he met Mukhtar by chance outside a restaurant, where she was alone. The group had been using illegal substances during the night, including Mukhtar, and she was given laughing gas by the group.

When the group left, Mukhtar got into the car with them. Paget said she behaved “playfully and sometimes confrontationally” inside the vehicle, but no one knew her personally.

While filming a video on her phone, the suspect ordered the driver to stop. Oso opened the back door, threw Mukhtar’s phone out, pushed her onto the road at Chadwell Heath Lane, then kicked and punched her.

Mukhtar suffered a fractured skull and fatal brain injury. Instead of helping her, Oso shouted at others to return to the car. Witnesses called out, urging them not to leave her.

The car left again at 4:36 a.m. before being stopped by police. Laughing gas canisters and a small bag of white substance were found in the car.

The group was detained for about 50 minutes without arrest and then released. A passerby later found Mukhtar unconscious on the road at 5:31 a.m.; she was pronounced dead an hour later from her brain injury.

The trial is ongoing.