Murder Mile UK True-Crime Podcast - #345: Tormented (Hanaa & Aziza Bennis, Acton, London, W3)22/4/2026 
Seven time nominated BEST BRITISH TRUE-CRIME PODCAST at the True Crime Awards, Independent Podcast Award and The British Podcast Awards, and voted 4th Best True-Crime Podcast by This Week, iTunes Top 25 Podcast, Podcast Magazine's Hot 50, The Telegraph's Top 5, Crime & Investigation Top 20 True-Crime Podcasts, also seen on BBC Radio, Sky News, The Guardian and TalkRadio's Podcast of the Week.
EPISODE THREE HUNDRED AND FORTY-FIVE: Monday the 15th of August 2022 at 3pm, Flat 72 on the first floor of Clariat Court was the home of Aziza Bennis, a 58-year-old school dinner lady and a mother-of-two, where she had raised her daughters as a single parent. To their neighbours, she was liked, as were her family. But on the afternoon of Monday the 15th of August 2022, she was frenziedly attacked and stabbed to death by her eldest daughter, Hanaa. But why?
Was she deranged, traumatised or defending herself, and what was the truth?
SOURCES: a selection sourced from various archives:
MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: What makes a monster; society, trauma, addiction, or a mother? Find out on Murder Mile. Today, I’m standing on Boddington Gardens in Acton, W3; four streets west of the lockdown killing by mother-of-one Olga Freeman, five streets east of the second attack by the sadistic paedophile known as The Beast, a short walk from the penultimate failed shooting in the killing spree of The Grey Man, and two streets south of the mad bad lad with the bloody bungee cord - coming soon to Murder Mile. This is Clariat Court in Boddington Gardens. Built in 2005, it is described as ‘a modern, multi-occupancy complex’ (whatever that means), being built of brown-brick with white UPVC doors, windows and fake timbers as if it was once an old sawmill or barn. As is typical of London flats, with land at a premium, the developer clearly paid a pittance for a corner of a cul-de-sac right next to a hectic main trainline, the Central Line tube, Acton Town station, a busy road and a transport depot, which is great for getting into the city, but not… (train horn)… if you don’t like… (train goes by)… hang on, it’ll go in a second… (train passing)… a little longer… (another train)… a little longer… (another train)… trains. (train horn) Back in 2022, Flat 72 on the first floor of Clariat Court was the home of Aziza Bennis, a 58-year-old school dinner lady and a mother-of-two, where she had raised her daughters as a single parent. To their neighbours, she was liked, as were her family. But on the afternoon of Monday the 15th of August 2022, she was frenziedly attacked and stabbed to death by her eldest daughter, Hanaa. But why? Was she deranged, traumatised or defending herself, and what was the truth? My name is Michael, I am your tour guide, and this is Murder Mile. Episode 345: Tormented. It’s impossible to explain who a person truly is. We don’t truly know the people around us, we only know the side they show us as we’re all pretending to be someone we’re not; whether smarter, stronger, younger or taller, we accentuate our attributes, diminish our weaknesses, embellish our successes, sweep our failings under the carpet, and once a person is deceased, those who claim they knew the victim burst forth with meaningless platitudes like “they were so kind, lovely, caring” (delete as appropriate), whereas the culprit, they can’t wait to shit on them, bragging “I knew they were bad”, but did nothing to intervene as “it wasn’t my place to”… …so, the only people who truly knew Aziza & Hanaa we’re themselves, and one of them is now dead. Born Aziza Rizq in the Moroccan city of Casablanca, little was reported about Aziza Bennis’s life before she came to the UK, and - like many ordinary people living their everyday lives - nothing was written about her until the day of her death, and this was exacerbated further as she spoke little of her past. Records suggest (but these may not be accurate) that she married an English-born man called Jones in June 1989 in the East London borough of Tower Hamlets, and from this seemingly happy union, two children were born; Hanaa in 2001 and her younger sister in 2003. But as often happens, with so many marriages put under strain, Aziza and her husband separated, and Hanaa lost contact with her dad. Previously, this family-of-three had lived in Southall, West London, but needing a bigger flat, in 2005, they moved into Flat 72 on the first floor of Clariat Court in Acton, as one of the first residents to move into this newly-built estate. It was small but suitable for their needs, the girls were educated locally, Aziza worked for several years as a well-liked dinner lady at Ark Acton Academy just over the train tracks, and although a single parent living on a minimum wage, Aziza did her best to raise them alone. London is an odd place. It’s rammed full of 9 million people, across 32 boroughs, over about 610 square miles, so you’d think that everyone would know everyone with a wealth of friends and neighbours. But they don’t. By-and-large, it’s a lonely place with no real sense of community, as being so tightly packed, you can’t get too cosey with your neighbours for fear of saying or doing something wrong. So, although many of Aziza’s neighbours spoke to the press about this family, their comments were vague. One said of Aziza, “she was caring… I just don't have anything bad to say about either of them… I just knew her as a neighbour and she was a really nice lady. She was really friendly”, someone on Reddit said “she was a such a calm lady”, with one resident stating “I got on with her. She was very friendly. I think she rented out the flat for Air B&B. She used to go back and forth to North Africa. Just last week she offered me a cab… I don't know about the relationships between the mother and the daughter". But such is life. We only know our neighbours on a surface level, with our knowledge of them mostly based around a set of fleeting interactions, with a smile, a wave and a pleasant chat about the weather once in a blue moon, but nothing too deep. So, to everyone else, they seemed like an ordinary family… …but what happened behind the locked door of their flat was much, much darker. Homelife was toxic. To the world outside, Aziza was a kind and caring woman and a good mother who was liked in the community, but to her daughter Hanaa, she was the devil herself. At the trial at The Old Bailey, Prosecutor Edward Brown KC stated, Hanaa’s “disruptive, rebellious behaviour… was the result of the abuse by her mother”, caused by her alcoholism and violence towards her own children. Where their anger stemmed from is uncertain, perhaps exacerbated by her husband’s abandonment? All children at some point resent their parents, with psychiatrists stating “it commonly surfaces during adolescence, when independence is sought, and in adulthood, when past traumas or unmet needs are re-evaluated”, being triggered by marriage, divorce, separation, grief and neglect. “Resentment is often a coping mechanism for hurt, serving as a protective barrier against further emotional injury”. But being a mother and a daughter, Aziza and Hanaa’s relationship was loaded with high expectations, emotional closeness and the blurred boundaries of a complex connection – which for many parents and their offspring (who were once their babies), many may swing from best friends to bitter enemies – theirs was exacerbated as Aziza had told Hanaa that her estranged father was dead, when he wasn’t. He was alive and well, but knowing his loss would tear at her soul, Aziza used it as to hurt her daughter. Psychiatrists state “when a mother becomes the abuser, the mother-daughter relationship shifts from a nurturing bond to one defined by fear, control and emotional danger, resulting in profound, long-term psychological harm to the daughter… characterized by coercion, manipulation and a destruction of that vital family trust, which can” – and, in this case, it did - “lead to Hanna developing chronic anxiety, depression and low self-esteem… as the foundational sense of safety is broken” when a parent turns from a child’s protector to their aggressor and tormentor. That is the ultimate betrayal. So, why did Aziza physically, mentally and emotionally abuse Hanaa? Was it due to her drinking, her own depression, did she blame her daughter for ruining her marriage, was it spawned by Hanaa’s rebellious behaviour or had Hanaa’s actions turned this supposed ‘good mother’ to drink and abuse? Hanaa was 21-years-old when she violently stabbed her mother to death… …it could be said, given the abuse she endured, that it’s amazing she didn’t break sooner. Psychiatric reports supported Hanaa’s claims of abuse, backed-up by her sister, “alongside extensive social services records which described Aziza as ‘frequently violent, unpredictable and unstable’”. Jeremy Dein KC for the defence said "(Hanaa) had grave difficulty in grappling with this lifelong abuse from her mother which resulted in her losing her control... the reality is that Miss Bennis's mother had ruined her life", and with her childhood being described as both ‘horrific’ and ‘hell’, Aziza subjected her daughter at an early age to threats with a knife, curses using black magic and killing her hamster, as well as rubbing chilli powder into her lips, and severely beating her with a sandal or a belt-buckle. Her upbringing was so brutal at the hands of her drunken, abusive mother, that on the 5th of December 2014, the newspapers reported; “Have you seen Hanaa Bennis? Police are appealing for help to find the 13-year-old who went missing yesterday… (she) was last seen at 5:30pm close to the Morrisons supermarket on King Street, Acton. Hanaa is described as 5ft 5ins, with long brown hair, brown eyes, when last seen she was wearing her school uniform comprising of a navy blazer, white shirt, grey tie, black trousers and shoes. And also wearing a black 'Superdry' raincoat with a pink logo on the back”. Found days later, Hanaa was placed on the Child Protection Register, as her home and mother weren’t seen as safe for this vulnerable young girl. Only instead of being protected, she was bounced from care homes to bedsits with bouts of homelessness. So bad was her home life, that 13-year-old Hanaa would rather live on the streets surrounded by druggies and paedos, than go home to her own mother. Throughout her formative years, it was said that “Hanaa’s behaviour was erratic” and she “refused to cooperate with professionals”, instead descending into a dark spiral of depression, drink and drugs. Posted on a Reddit thread after the murder, several school friends expressed their views about Hanaa, Aziza and the killing, which ‘may’ give an insight into the horrors inflicted by Aziza behind their closed door, or the ‘rebellious behaviour’ which may have led Aziza to be drunk and abusive to her daughter. But as with every opinion, these cannot be taken as fact, so must always be taken with a pinch of salt. One commenter wrote “went to secondary school with her, hung out with her a few times, she was lovely, but always had issues going on at home. this is sad”. Another wrote “she got excluded in year 9 or 10 and I think the issues started in year 9”, around the time she ran away from home. Some said she was violent and abusive, “she was Islamophobic and said she was gonna strip my friends hijab off… she also hit me once (in my face) completely unwarranted… she’s always been unhinged”, with another stating “she used to always get into fights and trouble, but had people protect her”. One even claimed “she was always a controversial character… I heard she was posting CP (child porn) of herself on Snapchat in a French class, but I personally didn’t see it because I didn’t have snap, she’s definitely a strange girl, lol”, with someone else commenting that she was seen “fingering herself” in class. It’s impossible to gauge how much of what was said was gossip and how much was true, we’ll never know, but with six convictions to Hanaa’s name by the age of 21, including assault, drugs, possession of a knife, and in 2021 (one year before) being sentenced to a community order for assaulting an emergency worker, an order she was still under when she murdered her mother, her life was chaotic… …but she had been trying to better herself. For a decade, she had lacked a stable homelife, love, warmth, happiness and a future worth living for. She had no father figure and her mother was her worst enemy. In 2019, aged 18, while studying at South Acton College, Hanaa got pregnant. And although it slightly curtailed her education - which she would later return to at the Open University in 2021 - it gave her focus, a goal in life, someone to live for, and – vitally - a reason to find a council flat with her boyfriend over in Ealing, away from her mother. Everyone needs breathing space and stability, this was hers, and becoming a mother herself, it gave her a chance to learn from her past mistakes, her mother’s failings, and make a good life for her child. Or it should have been. Diagnosed with complex PTSD, in February 2022, six months before, Hanaa had suffered a ‘meltdown’ due to “unresolved issues from her past”, which it was said, “was a significant contributor to the killing”. Again, only Hanaa & Aziza know what really happened, as one of their neighbours stated “the daughter wasn't a bad person. She is certainly not a bad person. It is just horrible. There are no winners in this”. It was said, that the killing was sparked by an argument over the custody of Hanaa' 3 year old child, as in an ironic twist, Aziza did not feel that Hanaa was a ‘fit mother’. It was never explained why, but on a Reddit thread for UKDrill, Hanaa is discussed, but many of these comments were later deleted. Using the slang ‘waps’ which means ’guns’, one of the commenters (who we know knew Hanaa, owing to the camera footage which was later uploaded in this thread) said of her “absolute phyco ting used to hold waps for gang members”, which they also refer to as ‘GM’s, but his statement can’t be verified. Another said, “these gm turned her satanic giving her stardog when she’s probaly from a good home”, which she wasn’t (far from it, but that’s who gangs attract), and with Stardogs (or Stardawgs) being a highly potent strain of hybrid cannabis known for its uplifting high, paranoid lows and aroma of diesel, he wrote “last time I smoked a stardog, I stabbed up my mum n dad. Normal behaviour after a joint”. And of course, when you combine stardogs with alcohol, depression meds, anxiety, depression, and a history of physical and mental abuse resulting in PTSD, Hanaa was far from stable on the day itself. Again, this can’t be verified, but one stated “worst thing is these gms are jeeting these satanic mental health jbags”, with ‘jeeting’ meaning to have sex with, and ‘jbag’ stating she was a ‘jizzbag’, just a hole for the boys to ejaculate in, as gangs target and cultivate vulnerable young girls using a need for drugs, and a want of love to assuage their loneliness and need for a family (of any description). “Seems like these were her only friends, imagine gm been your only friends, she probaly (sic) chills with, gives them head for some weed, listens to their stabbing music in their cars… she really got influenced, and her mum didn’t like her smelling of weed coming home and smoking weed in her room, it all adds up”. If this was true, it wasn’t a safe place to raise a child, or a haven for Hanaa to get herself mentally well. She was running away, escaping from the horrors of her past and the stresses of daily life by engaging in drugs, drink and a steady decline to the base of the barrel with the deadbeat dregs of life’s bottom. But worse still, she hated her mother (and rightly so), yet in a vicious circle of abuse, the daughter had becomes a mother, but not seeing the pain and neglect she was creating for her own child, if she could not see the damage she was doing – perhaps just as her own mother couldn’t – there no hope at all. Life was hard for Hanaa, and about to get even harder, as in March 2020, when Covid swept the Earth, one and a half years of lockdowns and restrictions made her even the most basic of chores tougher… …especially, when as she didn’t have a stable family unit to help her weather the storm. It’s impossible to say, in a balanced and unbiased way, who was to blame for the killing of Aziza Bennis; was it Hanaa’s rebellious streak and her reliance on drink and drugs to cope, or after years of cruelty and abuse by the one person she should have trusted – her own mother – did Hanaa finally snap? As is often said, the day of the murder started out as normal as any other, but for Hanaa & Aziza, their normal involved shouting, screaming and violence, as they were incapable of seeing each other’s side. It was Monday the 15th of August 2022, the weather was hot and clammy, the people of West London were fizzing with pent-up frustration after almost a year and a half of Covid restrictions, and with the cost of living having gone up, rent up, food up, everything but wages, something was about to break. That day, thankfully, Hanaa had left her child at nursery, so it wouldn’t experience the horror which would unfold between her mother and her grandmother, as Hanaa travelled from Ealing to Acton. With Aziza not working as a dinner lady as schools were on summer break, being both heavy drinkers, toxicology reports show that Aziza had consumed alcohol that day, as did Hanaa, with skunk cannabis. As was usual, even before they had set their eyes on each other and felt their angers rising, their fury and resentment had been bubbling like a boiling pot of caustic acid, spitting and scolding, as the two exchanged barbed insults and venom-filled scorn via texts. Hanaa wrote to her mother “You made me hate my life. U genuinely make me not want to live”, Aziza replied to her daughter “Get a life Hanaa”, and although she needed her mother’s help for child-care, Hanaa replied “Burn in hell you sour bitch”. At around 3pm, with the day reaching its hottest as the tarmac baked, as Hanaa had buzzed the entry system, but Aziza had refused to let her in, outside the building and in front of their neighbours, with no sense of shame, the two women screamed like furious banshees, hurling a lifetime’s worth of spite. The ear-splitting shrill of their screams were enough for the neighbours to call the Police… …but at that point, as there was no danger to life, they would arrive too late. And as this heated row moved away from prying eyes, what happened behind that locked door became much, much darker. They were both drunk, both angry, both volatile, both full of hate, and according to Hanaa “my mother attacked me with a knife... and had a glass as a weapon". A bloodied knife was found at the scene, as was a broken glass, Hanaa had a deep cut to her left eye and a puncture wound to her right thigh. Hanaa told Police, she screamed at her mother “you're going to kill me", as that’s what Hanaa believed and why wouldn’t she, as Aziza had attacked her before. Neighbours recalled hearing objects being thrown and smashed as their violence escalated, but none of them knew this would end in murder. Bleeding from her face, Hanaa was heard screaming “you’re a f***ing bitch… you stabbed me”, and as Jeremy Dein KC for the defence said “there was an explosion of violence by (Hanaa)… a release of her frustration and the trauma at what she had been subjected to throughout her life” by her mother. Grabbing the knife, Hanaa stabbed her back. Aziza was heard begging “stop hurting me”, and although, as she claimed, it may have started out as self-defence, with years or decades of anger unleashed and her pent-up hatred spewing forth at this women, her abuser and tormentor who should have been her protector, once Hanaa had started stabbing her, she couldn’t stop, until her energy was spent. Judge Lickley said “the ferocity of the attack proves your intent to kill”, as taking control of her life and her abuser, Hanaa stabbed Aziza more than 30 times, eviscerating her innards till they were shredded, as Hanaa was heard screaming “I’m sorry, I’m sorry”, as she stabbed, and stabbed, and stabbed. In the same Reddit post, a video was uploaded of the aftermath of the attack, as instead of calling an ambulance as her mother lay dying, using yubo, she video-called one of the so-called GM’s who recorded. In it, Hanaa is frantic and emotional, with many deep wounds to her face and a large kitchen knife in her hand, the camera is blurry as she moves it, but in the background, her mother lies bloody. (Upload the audio): (0:00) What happened? What happened? (0:03) Oh, fam, please. (0:08) Who? Who? Who? (0:12) Who, fam? Who tried to kill you? (0:14) My mum, my aunt's mum. (0:17) Where's your mum? Where's your mum? (0:18) I can see them over there. (0:20) Do you want to see them? (0:25) Where's your mum? Where's your mum? (0:26) Where's your mum? (0:30) Where's your mum? Where's your mum? (0:32) I don't know. (0:37) Where's your mum? Where's your mum? (0:38) She's dead. (0:40) Dead? Huh? (0:43) She's here. (0:44) She tried to stab me here (0:46) and in my leg and in my chest. (0:48) She's dead. (0:49) She's dead”. The Police arrived at 3:47pm, but it was too late. Forcing their way into the flat, Police and paramedics entered a scene of chaos; with blood spattered up the walls and floor, a bloody knife on the coffee table, shattered glass fragments, and in floods of tears Hanaa confessed “I’ve killed her, I’m sorry. She tried to stab me in my leg and thigh”, with her abuser, Aziza having been stabbed multiple times in the head, face and arms, having suffered a fatal wound to the right thigh, an air ambulance was scrambled, but she was pronounced dead at the scene. Maybe unable or unwilling to accept what she’d done, Hanaa told the Police “I saw my mum murdered in front of me. My mum is dead”, as if she hadn’t done it, and when taken to Ealing Hospital for her own injuries to be attended to, when she was arrested, Hanaa became violent, perhaps out of habit? As mentioned before, when the murder of this “lovely, kind, mother-of-two and dinner lady” was reported, she was heralded like she was a saint, with the principal of Ark Acton Academy (as was his job) stating “it is devastating news, and our thoughts are with Aziza's family at this difficult time… we will offer support to staff and students and hope to find a fitting way to remember Aziza”, with no-one really knowing the horrors which went on in that flat over the 17 years this mother and daughter had lived there. As for Hanna being the culprit, she was demonised, with few knowing she was a victim. Everybody said their piece, as if they knew the truth, and then they moved on. (End) The investigation was headed up by Detective Chief Inspector Jim Shirley of the Met's Specialist Crime Command, and with a knife, blood, DNA, a video message and a confession by the perpetrator herself, it wasn’t a question of whodunnit, by why? Was it owing to drink, revenge, hatred, or self-defence? Tried at the Old Bailey, before Judge Mark Lucraft KC, in a two-week trial which began in early January 2023, Hanaa denied murder, but pleaded guilty to manslaughter by diminished responsibility. The crux of the evidence focussed on the abuse that Hanaa and her sister had suffered at the hands of their mother, backed-up by social services records and psychiatric reports, going back years. It was made clear that “both doctors agree there are a number of features to consider but the overriding one is complex PTSD as a result of childhood trauma”, as well as the impact as drink and drugs. Judge Lucraft KC acknowledged Hanaa’s feelings of “shame and guilt”, and a letter she had written to the judge expressing her “fierce determination to rehabilitate”, but “I reject the submission you did not intend to kill your mother… the ferocity of the attack proves your intention to kill”. Found guilty of manslaughter on Thursday 18th of January 2023, Hanna Bennis was sentenced to nine years with a further five on extended licence after release. Summing up, Judge Lucraft said “you and your sister had a very troubled relationship with your mother from a young age. Physical and verbal abuse were features of your upbringing…” and although her PTSD was “a significant contributor to the killing… you made a very poor choice to visit your mother that day. You knew there was a significant history between you and your mother. You knew your mother’s personality. You had been drinking”. Hanna appealed her conviction in April 2025, with her barristers asking for her sentence to be reduced, asking that her mental state was not given full consideration. With the sentence ruled by Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr as “not manifestly excessive", Hanna is unlikely to be released until 2031. The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of.
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AuthorMichael J Buchanan-Dunne is a crime writer, podcaster of Murder Mile UK True Crime and creator of true-crime TV series. 
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