Wakefield double murder asylum seeker’s accomplice goes to jail

Samantha Sykes (left), 18, and Kimberley Frank, 17.

Steven Harratt was found guilty earlier this year of helping Ahmad Otak, an asylum seeker from Afghanistan who was sentenced to a minimum of 34 years in prison last year for murdering 17-year-old Kimberley Frank and 18-year-old Samantha Sykes.

Elisa Frank, Otak’s ex-girlfriend, told Harratt’s trial that she watched as Otak stabbed her sister to death in the flat in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, before spitting on her body and laughing.

She described how Otak used a cable from a CD player to tie her legs and hands and made her contact Miss Sykes, telling her to come to the flat.

Steven Harratt, and below, Kimberley Frank and Samantha Sykes.

Miss Frank said Otak waited in the hallway for Miss Sykes to arrive and described how she heard her screaming as he attacked and killed her.

Harratt gave Otak money, clothing, food and a sat-nav to help him get to Dover in Kent and try to leave the UK after the murders.

Otak forced Miss Frank to travel with him but was arrested after she raised the alarm in Dover.

Miss Frank was in court today to see Harratt, of Willow Grove, Wakefield, sentenced.

A jury took just two hours to find him guilty of assisting an offender after a four-day trial last month.

The court heard that, while Harratt did not know exactly what Otak had done, he must have realised that he had committed a serious offence.

Judge Geoffrey Marson QC told Harratt: “Had you know of the murders the sentence would have been significantly longer.

“I sentenced you on the basis, as the jury must have found, that you believed he had committed at least a serious offence of violence.

“You provided him (Otak) with food, with money and clothing and you went out and bought for him a satellite navigation device.”