A SEVEN-year-old boy at a family party smiles for the camera held by his doting mum.
The next day Rasheed Vaughan’s mother, Laura, was dead — murdered by his own dad in a shed he had bought specially to carry out the cold-blooded execution.
And now, 30 years after his carefree life fell apart, Rasheed is begging his father, Dr Hassan Al Shatanawi, to tell him where Laura’s body is buried.
The little boy, who posed happily at the get-together on June 14, 1993, was unaware that his dad had a mistress and another family.
Just one day later, the doctor committed what he believed would be the perfect murder, killing Laura so he could be with his lover.
Al Shatanawi, now 77, paid £250 for a new 4ft-by-8ft shed and had it put up on his allotment at Seaton Carew, near Hartlepool, Co Durham.
Then he lured unsuspecting Laura, 36, to the allotment and killed her in the shed before taking away her butchered body, piece by piece, and hiding it.
His plan was to demolish the wooden shed then set fire to it, destroying all evidence of his crime.
But rather than do the job himself, Al Shatanawi paid handyman Andrew Rae just £10 to get rid of it.
Instead, the workman ignored the doctor’s instructions and sold the shed to a pal — so when Al Shatanawi reported his wife missing, a police forensic team were eventually able to find Laura’s blood and strands of her light-brown hair on the shed floor at its new location.
But her body has never been found.
‘English princess’
Al Shatanawi pleaded not guilty to murder in a week-long trial at Newcastle Crown Court in 1994.
He was found guilty and jailed for life, with a minimum term of 16 years, though he served 18 due to Laura’s family objecting to his parole.
Today, three decades after the murder, Rasheed — now a 37-year-old council gardener — wants his father to give up the grisly secret of where he disposed of Laura’s remains.
He told The Sun: “Until I know where my mother’s body is, I will never be able to rest. We have a gravestone but we don’t have Mum.
“My dad is the only person who can put an end to the torment we’ve suffered so long.”
Al Shatanawi was born in Jordan and in 1985 he was in Egypt studying biochemistry when he put an advert in the lonely hearts column of a British newspaper: “Doctor would like to meet English princess”.
Trainee travel agent Laura, who had visited Egypt on holiday two years earlier, replied to it excitedly.
After a whirlwind long-distance romance, the couple wed in Cairo.
Rasheed was born there in 1986 before the family moved to the north east of England, where Al Shatanawi continued his studies, then set up in business as a property developer.
They lived together happily until Laura discovered her husband’s affair, and that he had fathered another boy who was by then five.
Al Shata-nawi planned to leave Laura and Rasheed to set up home with his lover and their son.
Rasheed, who now has a seven-year-old son of his own, said: “To discover this must have been devastating for Mum.
“I remember things could be turbulent at home sometimes. One memory I do have is of Dad hitting Mum.
“The image of him striking her stayed with me.
“When Mum went missing it was treated as nothing to worry about. Dad said she must have just gone away for a while, and she would be back.
“But time went by and she didn’t return. I felt worried and confused, then one day Mum’s best friend came to school to pick me up.
“I can still remember seeing her face at the window and instinctively knowing, ‘This is about my mum’.”
For three weeks Al Shatanawi had kept up a charade over Laura’s disappearance.
He told friends she had gone away on an unplanned solo holiday to Turkey or Hungary.
He even made local radio and TV appeals asking for anyone who knew where she was to get in touch, as he and Rasheed were frantically worried.
When handyman Andrew saw Al Shatanawi’s TV appeal he suspected she was a victim of foul play in the shed he had been asked to destroy.
He contacted Cleveland Police, who examined the shed in its new home in Middlesbrough— and found traces of Laura’s blood and hair.
Rasheed said: “I don’t remember specifically the police arriving to arrest Dad, but the aftermath is clear and the feeling of despair as it slowly sank in that Mam wasn’t coming back because my dad had killed her.
“It was something that a child can’t possibly process. You slowly come to understand that this is what has happened and there’s nothing you can do to change it. The police and some family members sat me down to explain what had happened.
“I’m not sure I fully took it in. I do remember my grandad saying a little later, ‘Your mum is dead and won’t be coming back so we have arranged a memorial for her at the church’.
“In some ways that helped to make it real. I knew she wasn’t coming back but the memorial made it a certainty, even though I was sitting there, thinking, ‘How does it help to have all these people sitting in a church? It won’t bring her back’.
“It was a struggle for me but the family were amazing and they helped me to cope with this enormous thing that had happened.
‘Trauma of my childhood’
“Mum was dead and Dad was in jail, so what was going to happen to me?”
Rasheed was taken in by his great aunt, Shirley Trainor, in the former pit village of West Cornforth, where he has remained ever since.
He now lives with partner Gemma Littley and their son, Ethan.
He said: “Ethan is the same age now as I was when all this happened and my goal in life is to give him the happiest and most secure family home he could have. We do all sorts of things together — we’re a real team. We go down to the allotment and make things in the garage together.
“He’s a happy lad, and that’s the way it’s going to stay.
“I look back at the trauma of my childhood and I’m just thankful for the love and support of Mum’s family who saw me through it. They were amazing.
“Ethan’s age and the 30th anniversary of Mum’s death really got me thinking more than ever about where she is.
“I’ve never spoken publicly before but this seems the time to appeal to my dad to give up his secret. He’s held that power over us for long enough. It might be that he didn’t do it alone — he could well have had an accomplice, so someone out there might know or suspect something that can help us.”
In the three decades since Laura vanished there have been several police searches for her.
Officers dug up a plot in the village of Oakenshaw, Co Durham, where Al Shatanawi had set up a business growing Christmas trees, but they found nothing.
Years later police dug up a spot at Seaton Carew golf course after a witness recalled seeing a man carrying what looked like a body.
The witness was correct — but the corpse was a dog.
Laura’s parents Evelyne and Donald, and her brother — also called Donald — all died without knowing where her body lies.
In Stranton Cemetery, Hartlepool, Laura’s name is on a headstone shared by her parents — but only two bodies lie beneath it.
The hope of discovering the truth was dealt a blow in 2013 when Al Shatanawi was freed from prison and deported to Jordan under a new scheme introduced by then Home Secretary Theresa May.
Rasheed said: “We couldn’t believe it. He was jailed in 1994 with a minimum term of 16 years.
“He actually served 18 after our family gave evidence to the parole board that he was holding back the secret of where he put Mum.
“But in 2013 our best chance of finding out where she is disappeared with him.
“I never give up hope that one day, as he gets older — he’ll be 77 now — his conscience will get the better of him and he’ll get in touch.
“It’s a strange feeling because he is still my dad. We had great times together when I was young, and I’ll always remember that.
“But if I hear from him again there’s only one thing I want to hear — and that’s how we can finally put Mum to rest.”
