Muslim community leaders today called for "honour" killings to be renamed "crimes of dishonour" or "family murders", in the wake of the conviction of Mahmod Mahmod for the murder of his own daughter.

Shaykh Ibrahim Mogra and Dr Reefat Draba both from the Muslim Council of Britain said the crime of “honour” killing should be renamed in an effort to put a stop to the death of thousands of women each year at the hands of their relatives. “When you say ‘honour’ killing it’s like saying 'What you’ve done you did to save the honour of your family'. We should be saying, ‘Any honour you once had, you’ve now lost’,” he told Times Online, “We should call it a crime of dishonour”. Mr Mogra argued that a change of name for the crime may go a small way to help change attitudes towards it and stamp it out once and for all.

Dr Drabu, a GP who chairs the Social and Family Affairs Committee of the Muslim Council of Britain, (MCB) said the current name was "a misnomer". "It's horrendous that a girl is killed by her own relations, it's beyond belief," she said "We must call it family murder".

When Mr Mogra and Dr Drabu met with the Attorney General Lord Goldsmith and Baroness Scotland in November last year, as well as members of the Crown Prosecution Service and the Home Office, to discuss forced marriages and “honour” killings they asked them to consider renaming the crime.

The lack of funding for groups working to support vulnerable women in the Muslim community led to “misconceptions” about the role of men and women, leaving “would-be victims” unprotected, Dr Drabu said.

The closure of a Muslim women’s helpline earlier this year because of lack of funding is symptomatic of what Dr Drabu sees as a refusal by the Government to accept responsibility for providing culturally-sensitive and faith-sensitive services to the community. “I’m sure that if there was appropriate funding these crimes would not be allowed to happen,” she said “This girl was seeking help, she was ignored because the police were not culturally sensitive.” Dr Drabu said the need to understand the culture that generates these acts was vital in preventing similar crimes.

Mr Mogra, who chairs the MCB Inter Faith Relations Committee said the issue was not exclusively a Muslim one, and affected religions from across South Asia. But he emphasised that imams in mosques around the country were educating their members that such actions as “honour” killings were wrong and “not sanctioned” by Islam.