Sheffield murder trial : Wife of 'Good Samaritan' Chris Marriott describes last time she saw him alive

Chris Marriott, aged 46, was hit, and killed, by a car as he stopped to assist a woman who was unconscious in the street, while a disturbance was ongoing on College Close, Burngreave, Sheffield, on December 27, 2023.

Five others - Hasan Khan, Riasat Khan, Ambreen Jhangur, Nafeesa Jhangur and off-duty midwife Alison Norris - who also stopped to help the injured woman - were also injured during the course of the same incident.

24-year-old Hassan Jhangur is currently on trial at Sheffield Crown Court, accused of Mr Marriott’s murder.

He is also alleged to have committed a number of other offences including attempted murder, grievous bodily harm with intent and wounding with intent, relating to the five others injured during the course of the same incident, all of which he denies.

The court heard how Mr Marriott had been on a family walk with his wife and two children in the moments before the fatal incident.

In a statement read to the jury of six men and six women on the first day of the trial yesterday (June 18, 2024), Chris Marriott’s wife, Bryony, said the family stopped after one of the children noticed a woman, who appeared to be Asian, ‘lying motionless’ in the street.

“I was going to offer assistance, however with the [children] being upset, Chris said he would go,” Mrs Marriott’s statement revealed.

As she and her children walked away from the scene, Mrs Marriott said she could hear her husband say to the motionless woman: ‘Hello, hello, can you hear me?’. She said Chris was on his knees at this point.

Mrs Marriott said she and her children returned to the family home nearby, at which point she realised Mr Marriott had the keys to the house; but she decided to wait there with the children who were ‘distressed’ from seeing the ‘motionless woman’ in the street.

“We heard a loud, distressed wailing sound about three or four minutes later,” Mrs Marriott said, adding that she subsequently became aware of police heading to the scene.

“As time went on, I didn’t hear anything, and decided to go to College Court,” Mrs Marriott said, adding that the children were left behind with friends.

She continued: “I explained who I was to the police, and that my husband was assisting,”

“He asked for a description [of him], and at this point I knew something was wrong.”

It was at that point that Mrs Marriott was taken aside and told that her ‘husband was deceased,’ the court heard.

Explaining the events that led the family to be on College Court shortly before the fatal incident, Mrs Marriott described how she, Chris and their children had returned home to Sheffield, after spending time with her family, at lunchtime that day. 

Mrs Marriott said the ‘weather had been terrible’ but they decided to ‘take the kids out,’ one of whom was ‘desperate’ to go on their skateboard, and they proceeded to go for a walk on one of their ‘regular’ routes.

Following the fatal collision, in which Mr Marriott was killed, Hassan Jhangur is alleged to have got out of the vehicle he was driving ‘as soon as it halted’ in the front garden of a nearby property and proceeded to stab his new brother-in-law, Hasan Khan, multiple times.

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Prosecutor, Tom Storey KC, said the incident took place hours after Mr Jhangur’s sister, Amaani, married Hasan Khan.

Opening the Crown’s case against Hassan Jhangur, Mr Storey told the jury that ‘catalyst’ for it appears to have been the Jhangur family being ‘disapproving’ of the union between the pair, and the subsequent arrival of Nafeesa Jhangur and Ambreen Jhangur - Hassan Jhangur’s mother and sister, respectively - at the Khan family home shortly after wedding celebrations had got underway.

An altercation subsequently broke out between members of the Khan and Jhangur families, during which Nafeesa Jhangur ‘fell to the ground’ and was seemingly rendered unconscious, Mr Storey said.

Hassan Jhangur’s father, Mohammed Jhangur, has gone on trial alongside him, accused of one count of perverting the course of justice, which he denies. 

Mr Storey said it is the Crown’s case that in the moments after Hassan Jhangur allegedly stabbed Hasan Khan, Mohammed Jhangur, aged 56, took the weapon his son had ‘wielded’ and ‘placed it out of sight in his locked car’. 

“The clear inference is that he did so intending to thwart or hamper the inevitable police investigation, by concealing a key piece of evidence which – so far as he knew – might have had very damaging consequences for his own son and the extent of his involvement in what had occurred at College Close,” Mr Storey said.

Moving to the Crown’s case against Hassan Jhangur, Mr Storey continued: “Hassan Jhangur unlawfully killed Chris Marriott, using his vehicle as a weapon, at a time when he intended to cause at least very serious harm; he also caused very serious harm to four other people, again at a time when he intended that consequence, namely to cause really serious harm.

“And Hassan Jhangur then stabbed Hasan Khan in circumstances which make clear that he intended to kill him.”

Hassan Jhangur has previously pleaded guilty to causing Mr Marriott’s death by dangerous driving, and causing serious injury by dangerous driving to the others hit by his vehicle. 

He denies Mr Marriott’s murder, however, as well as the alternative count of manslaughter. Hassan Jhangur has also entered not guilty pleas to one count of attempted murder, relating to the alleged stabbing of Hasan Khan, four counts of causing grievous bodily harm with intent and two counts of wounding.

Mohammed Jhangur, also of Whiteways Road, Grimesthorpe, Sheffield, denies one count of perverting the course of justice. 

The trial, which is expected to last five weeks, continues.