EXCLUSIVE: The former partner of ‘manipulative’ Jihad Al-Shamie, who unleashed a brutal terror attack at a synagogue in north Manchester, has told of being locked in his car and threatened after he appeared outside her home
19:30, 06 Oct 2025Updated 19:32, 06 Oct 2025
Al-Shamie, 35, was shot dead by armed officers after committing the attack(Image: Facebook)
A young woman who was in an on-off relationship with Manchester synagogue attacker Jihad Al-Shamie has told of the moment he stalked her outside her home, ‘locked her in his car’ and told her: “I could kill you with my bare hands.”
Al-Shamie, 35, was shot dead by armed officers after committing the attack at the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation synagogue on Thursday morning (October 2) during Yom Kippur.
Two men – Melvin Cravitz, 66, and Adrian Daulby, 53 – died during the attack and four others were left seriously injured.
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A former partner, who previously said she was ‘groomed’ by Al-Shamie and had his extreme views pushed onto her, has spoken exclusively to the Manchester Evening News after realising he was responsible for the attack.
She has now opened up about his ‘manipulation’; by stalking her outside her place of work and on one occasion, claiming he picked her up from outside her home, locked her in his car before pulling her hair and then threatening that he could ‘kill her with his bare hands’.
The woman, who left the country after the four-month relationship, has asked not to be named.
“He would know my workplace, and my [home] address. He either stalked my Instagram to find some of my friends or must have followed me in a taxi home. Somehow he found out where I lived,” she explained in an interview with the M.E.N.
“One day, he was outside my house. I was ready to leave for work and was on the phone to my friend. An unknown caller started ringing me.
Police at the scene of the attack(Image: PA)
“I went to answer the phone and it was his voice. So, I ended it straight away. I went back on the phone to my friend, and she told me to ignore it and not answer it again.
“He called again three times. I answered it and was like ‘what do you want?’. He said he was outside my house.
“I knew he was outside the house and wasn’t going to ignore him. He was saying he wanted to take me to work and was saying ‘I just wanna talk’.
“I told him I was ordering a taxi and that I was alright, but he said he didn’t want me to waste money on a taxi and that he wanted to just talk on the way.
“He said ‘if you don’t come now I’m going to knock on your door.'”
The former partner previously claimed Al-Shamie lied about his age when he first spoke to her – telling her he was about 24 when she was still 18. She says she discovered his real age, in his mid-30s, when she found his ID – which he tried to claim was fake. He went on to lie further, telling her he had no children when she says he did have children and an ‘ex-wife’.
“My dad was asleep and my mum was downstairs. I was like s***, if he comes to the door, she can’t not see him. I was totally ashamed, because this was after I’d found out his age,” she added.
“My mum would not be OK with the fact that some god knows how old man was coming to her door and asking for her daughter.
“I said ‘right I’ll come outside but you’re not taking me to work.’ At that point, I was planning on walking away after I’d seen what he wanted and getting him to leave.
“He told me if I didn’t get in and let him take me to work, he was going to knock on my door because my mum was in. He knew that I was scared.
“I got in the car and he went a different direction to my work. I knew he was either taking me somewhere else or the longer way.
“I had my friend on the phone the whole time. As I left the house, I had left her in my pocket on mute. She heard everything and had my location, so she could call my mum, call my dad, or call the police.”
The former partner claimed that Al-Shamie then parked up in a car park near a shop which was quiet due to the time of the morning.
She added: “I told him ‘I’m getting out if you’re not going to take me to work’. He started spouting off horrible stuff, telling me that he could kill me with his bare hands, right here right now and that nobody would know the difference.
“He pulled my hair, and at that point I shouted to my friend on the phone. He was laughing.
“My friend told him she had my location and was calling the police in two minutes if he didn’t let me out of the car. He unlocked the doors and as soon as he did, I took my chance to get out and walked the long way to work.
“It was all manipulation. He didn’t let me go. He took me where I needed to go but not too close. Pulled my hair and locked me inside his car… and he wasn’t bothered.”
She said the pair would regularly meet up at a local Premier Inn hotel when Al-Shamie ‘didn’t want her to be around his family’.
The former partner also said, aged 18 at the time, she was ‘groomed’ and had extreme views pushed onto her by Al-Shamie. She claimed he told her to ‘be dedicated to the cause’ as he showed her ‘extreme videos’, also expressing worrying conversations about his ‘rape fantasies’ – which she never thought he was serious about.
Conversations with the attacker included abusive messages he sent to her following their break-up, one of which said: “We had a good year or so. I enjoyed destroying you hundreds of times. In your prime.”
And in a voice note to her in which he was attempting to convince her to lose weight, he was heard saying: “Your main issue is, because you don’t eat, your metabolism is slow,” later telling her ‘what you need to do’ before giving dieting suggestions.
“I don’t know what happened to him. When I saw that picture of him, his body language, it wasn’t him,” she said of the day she found out he was the attacker and saw an image circulating of him outside the synagogue. “It looked like he’d gone insane.
Jihad Al-Shamie before he was shot by police
“Every time I close my eyes I just see it. I don’t know who that person is in the picture. Yes he was horrible, but I never saw it going this far.
“I was ashamed of the relationship. I didn’t want anyone to know about him. I just thought his beliefs were very strong. Everyone has thoughts, but they’d never go out and hurt another person based off their beliefs.
“One side of me was terrified to go to the police. I’d found out so much about him that my mind was focussed on me healing and not calling the police for something I never thought he would give action to.
“He knew where I lived, and who my mum and dad were, and wouldn’t put myself in that situation. How would I have known he would’ve done this?
“He was so Muslim and would always say if you hurt people you could go hell, if you kill people you could go to hell. I never ever would’ve thought he would’ve stabbed people. I have so many questions.
“If I could go back, I would call the police. I understand now that his mind was his mind.”