A WOMAN who tried to help her brother escape justice after he was arrested for his part in the "severed thumb" murder of a restaurant worker from Watford was jailed for two years on Tuesday.

Naziran Mohammed, 44, put pressure on a key witness in the case not to provide a signed statement to police which implicated her brother in the murder.

The witness, Tina Kelly, was the long term partner of Mohammed's brother, Sharif Mohammed, and knew things that would incriminate him in the murder of Mahmood Ahmad of Radlett Road, Watford.

She had already given the police a statement, but later told officers more things about Sharif Mohammed's role in what had happened.

As a result, police wanted a second signed statement from her.

It was this second statement that Sharif Mohammed and his sister were keen she shouldn't sign.

After Sharif Mohammed had been arrested for the murder, he was held in custody to await trial.

Telephone calls to prisoners on remand are routinely recorded and during Naziran Mohammed's calls to her brother she was heard to say: "I've been doing my best like - you know to keep her sweet."

When her brother told her to "put some some sense into her" she replied: "We are trying to put some sense into her, we do that every day man."

In another exchange when the brother said: "Should they get her signatures, then I've had it" his sister replied: "I know that. We are trying to put some sense into her. We are trying to put some sense into her every day, saying to her 'you mustn't do it.' She says 'No' I won't do it."

In the end Sharif and his brother Mohammed Riaz were convicted at St Albans Crown Court of the murder of Mr Ahmad.

The murdered man was the brother-in-law of Mohammed Riaz.

Mr Ahmad was snatched by Riaz and others as he arrived late at night outside his home in Watford in March 2009. He had just driven home from London where he had been working in a restaurant.

Inside the house his wife Farah heard his car door slam, but he never came into the house.

Mr Ahmad was kidnapped and taken by car to an east London flat where he was tortured in a bid to make him reveal his sister's whereabouts.

She had left Mohammed Riaz in 2008 and gone into hiding after he was violent towards her.

Riaz was determined to track her down and thought he could extract the woman's whereabouts from her brother.

But that night Mr Ahmad died.

It was three days after his kidnapping that Mr Ahmad's severed thumb was found near an office in Ilford after possibly dropping from a bird's beak. The rest of his remains have never been recovered.

The prosecution's case was that after Mr Ahmad was taken to the flat, Sharif Mohammed arrived there and took part in the violence that was to prove fatal.

Amirzada Hussain, 37, from east London, was cleared of murder but convicted of manslaughter and conspiracy to falsely imprison.

Faisal Chowdhury, 18, and Arnold Yousaf, 19, both from east London, were cleared of murder but convicted of conspiracy to kidnap and conspiracy to falsely imprison.

Riaz's sister Sabra Sultana, 36, from Ilford, was cleared of conspiracy to falsely imprison, but convicted of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

Naziran Mohammed from Ilford appeared for sentence having earlier been found guilty of perverting the course of justice.

Passing sentence on Naziran Mohammed on Tuesday, Judge Barbara Mensah told her the offence was so serious that only a custodial sentence was justified.