Gay man who strangled wife and burned body found guilty of murder

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/apr/11/man-strangled-wife-burned-body-murder

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A gay bank worker who murdered his wife in an attempt to hide his sexuality has been ordered to serve at least 21 years behind bars. Jasvir Ginday, 29, was sentenced on Friday to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 21 years for killing his wife months after marrying her to hide his sexuality and burning her body in a garden incinerator .

He used a vacuum cleaner pipe to strangle Varkha Rani, 24, who was isolated and friendless after arriving in Britain from India following the arranged marriage.

Police found her remains in the garden of the couple's neat home in Walsall, West Midlands, after neighbours reported thick, unpleasant-smelling smoke. Ginday told police he had been burning leaves, but one of the officers lifted the lid of the incinerator and saw the remains of a skull.

Rani had been placed in the incinerator in the foetal position. There was no evidence she was forced in alive. Officers found a bangle, a bracelet and an inscribed ring presented to her on her wedding day. Burnt jewellery and paperwork were discovered in adjoining parkland.

Judge John Warner told Ginday, who has no previous convictions, his behaviour towards Rani before the killing had been a "fundamental deception" of a vulnerable woman living thousands of miles from her home country. "It was a very cruel situation in which you put her. You have told lie after lie about a number of matters such that it is impossible to rely on anything you say. I am satisfied you intended to kill – you are a devious, controlling man and a meticulous planner in a number of aspects of your life."

He added: "Killing her was a dreadful enough thing to have done, but what followed was horrible almost beyond imagining. You behaved in an unbelievably casual and callous way, with a complete lack of any humanity.

"No one who was in court to hear that evidence will easily put out of their minds the image of her body being poked and prodded by you down into that incinerator."

The prosecution at Wolverhampton crown court said Ginday had told some close friends but not his family he was gay and had been afraid of his parents' reaction. In October 2012 he and his mother travelled to India to find him a wife. He met Rani through a matchmaker just before he was due to fly home. They married at a lavish ceremony attended by 700 guests.

Deborah Gould, prosecuting, said: "No doubt to Varkha's family the defendant appeared to be a perfect match for their intelligent, well educated and attractive young daughter." Rani arrived in Britain on 10 August 2013 and was "in all senses a stranger in a strange land", the prosecution said.

Ginday, an IT specialist who was about to join the financial ombudsman service in London, quickly realised he did not want to be married but felt he could not get a divorce without arousing suspicions about his sexuality.

He killed his wife in September and filed a missing persons report. He told police she had walked out on him after "using" him to gain entry to the UK.

Ginday later admitted manslaughter and perverting the course of justice by trying to dispose of her body, but denied murder.

He later admitted manslaughter saying he and Rani had been cleaning their house when she told him she had found out he was gay and threatened to expose him. They struggled and he said he placed the vacuum cleaner pipe against her throat with "moderate force" but then snapped and applied too much pressure.

In the witness box, Ginday said he had realised he was gay aged 12. He said his parents would have been devastated had they known. Ginday said he had had no relationships with women before meeting Rani and had genuinely wanted the marriage to work and to have children.

The judge John Warner said Ginday had struggled with "being a gay man in a straight world".