As the sun set over central London on Thursday evening, some of Britain’s most high profile Pakistanis gathered for a glittering event at a five-star hotel.
They were there in Westminster to attend the Pakistani Achievement Awards, an annual black tie gala, now in its 15th year, which celebrates the myriad triumphs of the community and announces the year’s ‘power 100’ list.
Last year, one of the attendees and recipient of an award was a 37-year-old businessman called Salman Iftikhar.
Rather dressed down among his peers in an open neck black shirt and trousers, Iftikhar seemed somewhat underwhelmed as he received his trophy from the event’s host – but then it is highly likely that he had other things on his mind that night.
For what few of his fellow guests knew was that five months earlier, Iftikhar had opened the door of his £2million six-bedroom home in the smart Buckinghamshire village of Iver to find several police officers on the doorstep.
They promptly arrested him on suspicion of making threats to kill and racially aggravated harassment.
The culmination of this incident made headlines last week, when a judge at Isleworth Crown Court heard how the recruitment firm founder had launched a prolonged and vile verbal assault on a first class flight attendant called Angie Walsh during a Virgin Atlantic flight from London to Lahore in February 2023.
In a series of 100 separate incidents that played out over eight hours, the champagne-swigging Iftikhar – who was accompanied in the first class cabin by his wife and three children – launched a deeply abusive and offensive tirade against Ms Walsh after she politely requested he did not help himself to ice using his bare hands.
Among his gross insults, he accused her of being racist, called her a ‘f****** white Welsh c***’ and most horrifyingly of all, screamed at her that she would be dragged from her hotel room, gang raped and set alight on arrival in Pakistan.
Salman Iftikar with his second wife, Abeer Rizvi
Iftikar with his first wife, Erum Salman, and their two children
His atrocious behaviour means Iftikhar could not attend this week’s award ceremony at London’s prestigious Dilly Hotel as he is instead languishing behind bars in Brixton prison, having been sentenced to 15 months.
It is an extraordinary downturn in fortune for Iftikhar, who until recently seemed to be the walking definition of self-made success.
A textbook ‘Flash Harry’, his social media feeds were a riot of supercars, yachts, outdoor swimming pools and first class travel, latterly with his beautiful wife, the Pakistani supermodel Abeer Rizvi.
Yet behind this carefully curated image is a rather more complex story. For Abeer, resident in Pakistan, is one of Iftikhar’s two wives – the other, a 38-year-old called Erum Salman who lives with him in the UK, is the mother of his three children, and who accompanied him on his fateful flight.
Iftikhar also has a trail of previous convictions which include common assault and drink-driving, and a decidedly unusual financial CV: the business with which he made his name went bust two years ago with £17million worth of debts, while his current enterprises are both in the red.
When we spoke to Michael Gadsby, Iftikhar’s original business partner at his Florida home this week, he was horrified by what he had seen on a viral video depicting some of Iftikhar’s extraordinary tirade.
Gadsby, who has not had contact with Iftikhar for several years told us: ‘I found out about this the same way as everyone else – scrolling news and social media. I’m appalled at what I saw.
‘I feel sorry for the crew member involved and for her family, having to watch that back and seeing how she was treated. I feel sorry for Salman’s wife, Erum, who is a good woman, and their three children.’
Meanwhile, neighbours at the Buckinghamshire home where Iftikhar and his family have lived for the past decade, criticised his party lifestyle and the disruption it causes.
One, who declined to be named, said: ‘It seems like every day there’s ten cars out here late at night. What sort of business are you doing at 1am?’
Who, then, exactly is Salman Iftikhar and what kind of man is he?
A Pakistani national, it’s unclear exactly when he arrived in the UK, although in a business profile written several years ago he said he had started work here aged 17 as a junior recruiter before deciding to go it alone in 2013, by which point he was in his mid-twenties.
He teamed up with Gadsby to found Hounslow-based aviation food recruitment business ‘Staffing Match’ – company name SM Global Consultancy Ltd – to fill temporary jobs predominantly in London’s major airports.
As Gadsby later revealed in a post on networking site Linked In, the duo started out working from Gadsby’s council flat on a budget of just £5,000, borrowed from Gadsby’s father.
By 2016, the business was making £12million, its turnover doubling annually from then until reaching a whopping £91.3million in 2021, by which point the company was employing 93 people.
A still from a viral video showing Iftikar verbally attacking a flight attendant
Angie Walsh was called a ‘f***ing white Welsh c***’ by Iftikar on the Virgin Atlantic flight
On paper a success story then – and SM Global certainly had the awards to prove it. Yet while the company directors, including Iftikhar and Gadsby, were able to pay themselves substantial dividends down the years (he withdrew £800,000 in 2021) net profit that year was a mere £1.6million.
Less than two years later, the company went into administration owing £11.4million to HMRC and £6.9million to HSBC. Shortly before administrators were formally appointed, the sale of the business was agreed in a ‘pre-packaged administration’ to another company.
By then, co-founder Gadsby had parted ways with his old business partner, and has not spoken to him since.
Today, Iftikhar continues to own recruitment firm Staffing Match Ltd and cargo handling firm Training Match Ltd, but both are struggling with net liabilities of over £3,000.
It’s not clear how he continues to finance his lifestyle but in another business profile, he told how he has also built up a ‘real estate portfolio’ and had also diversified in recent years into ‘exposure to cryptocurrencies’.
And according to his social media he is trying to drum up investment from foreign nationals and Pakistanis living overseas in ‘development plots’ in Pakistan’s port city of Gwadar, which models itself as ‘the next Dubai’.
That project, at least, is going to prove tricky to manage from his cell in Brixton prison – Iftikhar’s first time behind bars despite several brushes with the law.
As Isleworth Crown Court heard, over the years Salman has amassed six previous convictions arising from 15 offences, including two counts of common assault in 2004 and drink driving in 2008.
He was also convicted of making off without payment in 2005, taking advantage of a death of an employee in 2006 and driving with excess alcohol in 2008.
While no further details were given about these convictions, a news report from 2021 reveals Iftikhar was fined £3,000 after he was caught drunk behind the wheel while driving in July that year.
When pulled over, police also found him in possession of cannabis. Iftikhar, who was two times over the legal limit, subsequently pleaded guilty to drink driving, cannabis possession and failing to stop a vehicle when required to by a constable.
What’s more, when the Daily Mail called at his UK residence this week neighbours said that police had also been called to his home address dozens of times.
‘There’s been so many rowdy late night parties that have ended up in fights in the early hours of the morning. At one point it felt like the police were here almost every day,’ said one who also described Iftikhar as ‘often spaced out’ and ‘not very friendly’.
Yesterday there was no answer on the intercom at the family’s Buckinghamshire home although neighbours believed Erum – who they described as a ‘nice lady’ – was still living there with the couple’s three children.
Which brings us to the other eyebrow raising part of Iftikhar’s colourful back story. For while Iftikhar has been married for well over a decade to Erum, since 2019 he has also been married to model and actress Abeer.
When in Pakistan, the couple live together in a large farmhouse in one of Lahore’s most exclusive districts, where Abeer, 37, now runs a beauty salon called 717.
It is unclear how the two met, but in the past few years and despite Iftikhar’s business struggles they appear to have enjoyed an extravagant lifestyle, with Abeer posting images to her half a million social media followers of the couple on board yachts, driving around in expensive cars and attending film premieres.
Earlier this year, she posted a gushing tribute on Instagram to mark Iftikhar’s 37th birthday. ‘My beloved husband, on this day I want to honour you and your unique ways,’ she wrote. ‘Disagreements may come and go, but your love and understanding comes in abundance. I am truly grateful for being able to share this journey with you.’
Last week, after videos of the air rage incident flooded the internet, she appeared to plead for clemency. ‘Mental health is not a joke. Behind every story there is pain you don’t see,’ she wrote. ‘Before judging, try understanding. Be kind. Be human.’
Abeer did not respond to calls for comment this week when we rang her mobile phone. No doubt, like Erum, she is lying low.
Whether the two women are in touch is anybody’s guess. According to one who knows both: ‘You couldn’t find two more different people. They are literally opposite ends of the spectrum. Erum was there before all the big money. She is a nice, down to earth person. Abeer is accustomed to the finer things in life and she has big plans.’
It was to Abeer’s home city of Lahore that Iftikhar was headed on that fateful day in February 2023. As Isleworth Crown Court heard, his conduct was reprehensible. Visibly drunk and slurring words, his extraordinary and sustained verbal attack on Ms Walsh was so severe that the cabin crew discussed a diversion to Turkey. Meanwhile his sobbing wife and children, who had pleaded for him to stop, had to be comforted by crew, while Ms Walsh herself was left so traumatised she was off work for 14 months.
By way of mitigation, Iftikhar’s defence counsel Ben Walker-Nolan said his client was suffering from ‘amnesia blood loss’ [memory loss triggered by blood loss], and ‘has a long-standing drug and alcohol problem which he has not addressed for many years’.
These words appear to have cut little ice with presiding judge, Ms Recorder Annabel Darlow KC, who while sentencing made a point of drawing attention to what she called Iftikhar’s ‘lengthy and appalling record of misconduct’.
Handing down a custodial sentence to the weeping Iftikhar, she chastised him for not addressing his drug and alcohol problems, noting: ‘This was an appalling incident which has caused long-lasting and devastating consequences.’
Moreover, Iftikhar may yet have further reason for dismay: this week, it emerged that Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp had written to the Attorney General Lord Hermer to express concerns about the leniency of the sentence and urged him to consider referring the case to the Court of Appeal for it to be increased.
Lord Hermer has yet to respond. Either way, one imagines that even if, as is expected, Iftikhar emerges from behind bars at some point next year, it will be a very long time – if ever – before his tattered reputation is restored.
