A British man obsessed with fitness made his daughter sign a lifelong “contract” promising not to gain weight almost daily, as she ruled her family with an iron first, according to a report.
Rachid Khadla, 56, faces charges of child cruelty and assault for his alleged treatment of his adult daughter, Amira, and his sons, Hicham and Karim, Hyde News & Pictures reported.
“I, Amira Khadla, will never get fat. I will do a lot of exercises to make sure I never gain weight, even until I die, ”Khadla’s daughter wrote in her 2012 agreement, according to a court.
Amira’s domineering father had also assaulted her, regularly hitting her with a spoon, punching her in the chest and even throwing a chair at her, and she decided what she could wear, who she could see and what he could see on TV, according to the news agency.
The fitness fan, from Windsor on the outskirts of London, always consumed himself with his children’s waist and weighed them to make sure they didn’t pack the pounds.
He also suffocated his son, who was now 18, and beat the children with spoons if he believed they had misbehaved, the court reported on Tuesday.
Sarah, Khadla’s 27-year-old wife, Sarah, did not intervene in the abuse, but backed her prosecution, saying she had a “quick temper,” according to the report.
The father was reportedly “aggravated” by his young son, Hicham, who had learning difficulties. In October 2019, she allegedly attacked the boy for being too slow when cleaning his sister’s room.
“He hit Hicham in the chest several times and then pushed him into his sister’s bed,” prosecutor Alex Krikler said.
“Then he put both hands on his neck and strangled him for quite some time (five to ten seconds) before pulling him up, punching him in the chest and walking away.” he said. Hicham had tried to say ‘stop,’ but he hadn’t been able to speak.
“I couldn’t breathe and, although the marks left by the strangulation were relatively minor, the incident was extremely terrifying,” Krikler added.
Hicham told his mother the next day that his father had “crossed the line” and then shared his test with classmates while the family celebrated his sister’s college graduation.
The boys told their teachers what Hicham had told them and the staff informed the police, who arrested Khadla that night.
“For the smallest transgressions at home, he said he would regularly get‘ the spoon ’,” Krikler told the jury.
“His father made him take his hands off and slap his palms with a wooden spoon. He also described how his father pushed him and punched him and sometimes threw things at him, ”he said.
“The abuse was not just physical. The defendant would also threaten extreme violence, as he would “splash his brain on the ceiling and kill him.” His father would tell him he was weak, ”Krikler added.
The eldest son, Karim, now 26, recounted “control, temperament and violence,” and that he was hit in the head so hard when he was 15 that he knocked him down.
Karim left home and severed all ties with the family before the allegations surfaced.
Krikler said the mother “describes the control she exercised over the family and how she had a quick temper and would get angry for no reason. This anger she describes as being directed at children.”
Khadla claimed to have attacked Hicham in “self-defense”, saying he was afraid of his enraged son, so he tried to stop him.
“When asked about how he would discipline his children, he said that when they were younger, he would hit them once at the bottom, but otherwise he said he had never beaten or physically punished them,” Kirkler said.
“He refused to threaten his children or physically hurt them, saying he sometimes yelled, but that was all. He refused to control his children. “
Khadla faces three counts of child cruelty and two counts of assault causing actual bodily harm.