Mother, 4 children stabbed to death in New York home

A mother and her four young children, including a toddler, have been killed in a late-night stabbing rampage at their home in New York.

Police say a man has been taken into custody.

Officers who arrived at the scene late on Saturday found all five victims unconscious and unresponsive.

Two girls and a boy were pronounced dead at the scene, while another boy and the woman were taken to Brooklyn hospitals, where they were pronounced dead.

The victims were identified as 37-year-old Qiao Zhen Li and her children, nine-year-old Linda Zhuo, seven-year-old Amy Zhuo, five-year-old Kevin Zhuo, and one-year-old William Zhuo.

A man identified by police as a person of interest has been taken into custody, but no charges have yet been filed.

Fire department spokesman Jim Long says emergency workers responded just before 11pm, local time, to a call from a person stabbed at the home in Sunset Park, a working-class neighbourhood of adjoining two-storey brick buildings.

Neighbour May Chan told the Daily News it was "heartbreaking" to learn of the deaths.

"I always see (the kids) running around here," Chan said.

"They run around by my garage playing. They run up and down screaming."

Man, 84, jailed for raping deaf, mute girl

An 84-year-old man was sentenced to 13 years in prison for repeatedly raping a deaf and mute girl he trafficked into Britain and kept as a virtual slave.

Ilyas Ashar — who brought the girl into the U.K. from Pakistan in 2000 when she was about 10 — was found guilty of rape by a jury last week. He was convicted at an earlier trial of trafficking and benefits fraud charges in relation to the child.

The victim, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, was beaten and kept in a cellar of the Ashar family home in the Manchester area of northwest England.

In sentencing, Judge Peter Lakin said neither Ashar nor his wife had expressed any remorse and failed to treat the girl as a human being.

“To you she was merely an object to be used, abused and cast aside at will,” he said.

The girl — who could not read or write — was taught to write her name by Ashar and his family so they could claim benefits.

Ashar’s wife, Tallat, was jailed for five years on trafficking and benefits fraud charges.

The couple had pleaded not guilty.

Prosecutor Peter Cadwallader praised the victim’s courage and “extraordinary resilience” in testifying in court.

When she was rescued in a police raid in 2009, the victim did not know formal sign language.

British prosecutors and police arranged specialist support so that she could participate in the court proceedings, having an intermediary and a sign-language expert to help her communicate in court.

Speaking through an interpreter and using sign language, the victim described how she was hit with a rolling pin while forced to work for no money, made to sleep on a concrete floor in a bolted cellar and sexually abused.

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