A mother jailed for life for the first known murder by arsenic poisoning in Britain in 40 years has finally confessed to the killing.

Zoora Shah was found guilty of murdering Bradford businessman Mohammed Azam, brother of former president of Bradford Council for Mosques Sher Azam.

Mr Azam was buried and a death certificate granted, giving the cause of death as gastro-enteritis.

But in an Agatha Christie-style twist, his body was then exhumed from Scholemoor Cemetery at Lidget Green and traces of arsenic were discovered.

Now, after serving four years of a life sentence, Shah, 52, a mother-of-three, is to appeal against the murder conviction but admit a lesser charge on the grounds of diminished responsibility and/or provocation.

Shah, who always denied the murder charge, will appear at the Court of Appeal in London on March 30. Middlesex lawyer Rohit Zanghvi, who is heading the challenge, said: "An appeal will take place at the end of March. If the appeal is based on diminished responsibility and provocation, there would only by a reduction to a lesser charge."

Stephen Murdoch, of TI Cloughs solicitors in Bradford, was her defence solicitor at Bradford Magistrates' Court in 1992.

"It was almost the perfect crime," said Mr Murdoch. "The story was straight out of an Agatha Christie novel."

Shah, who lived at Legrams Lane, Lidget Green, had been lacing Mr Azam's food with arsenic.

But the truth wasn't revealed until coroner's officer PC Kate Foster read the papers about the case and became suspicious. She telephoned Sher Azam and asked where his brother had his last meal. That phone call sparked a murder inquiry.

As detectives started the investigation, they found Mr Azam had been named in court two years previously as the subject of an assassination plot - with the woman behind the contract being Shah.

The coroner then issued a warrant for the body to be exhumed.

Just over a year later at Leeds Crown Court, in 1993, Mr Justice French sentenced her to life for murder. He also ordered her to serve seventeen years for soliciting a man to kill and for forgery, to run concurrently.

Shah is currently in Holloway Prison, London.

Mr Murdoch said: "It seems rather strange that she has changed her story to say she administered the poison."

Sher Azam refused to comment on the appeal decision today.

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