Tragedy of illegal immigrant

See also: Singh cleared of murders

Report by Deborah Collins

On the back of a lorry and with just 22 euros in his pocket – Sukhdev Singh came to this country for a better life.

His impoverished family paid people smugglers to get him here from India because they thought the streets were paved with gold.

But the better life turned to tragedy for victims Jaswant Singh and Kulwant Singh, when Singh lost his temper and turned on the two men he claimed had tormented him.

He snapped in the early hours of December 7 last year and beat them about the head with a hammer before tightening ligatures around their necks to "finish them off" in a flat above Shawbury Fish Bar.

He hit Jaswant Singh, also known as Jim, five times with a hammer as the victim sat on a bed and Kulwant Singh, also known as John, was struck once before he fled the room. The killer claimed he thought Kulwant had gone to fetch a knife to kill him with, so he followed him on to the dark landing and hit him repeatedly.

He then phoned a friend and said "I have killed two people, what should I do?".

Singh, 27, made attempts to clean up the scene using bleach and water, wiping the walls and trying to remove blood which had seeped through carpets and underlay.

He washed and dried bedding and disposed of buckets and buckets of blood-stained water, and also put make-shift ropes around the necks of the men, dragging them down the stairs in an attempt to make it look as if they had been killed outside by someone else.

But forensic examinations of the flat revealed the clean-up attempt and showed the men had been killed upstairs.

The owners of the fish bar discovered the bodies later in the morning after receiving an "agitated" phone call from Singh.

By the time they arrived at the flat Singh had fled and was on his way to a Sikh temple in Smethwick.

He took with him a carrier bag containing the hammer he had used to kill the men, the makeshift rope he had used to drag their bodies down the stairs and bloody cloths and clothes.

He claimed to have dumped the bag in Birmingham.

Parminder Kaur Suraj and her husband Jaswinder Singh Suraj were unable to open the door to the flat fully when they arrived as the bodies of the men were blocking it.

When they eventually managed to open it, they saw the bodies of the two men at the bottom of the stairs, both heavily blood-stained.

The attack on the men had taken a matter of seconds and the clean-up operation a number of hours.

Weeks before he killed them, he claimed the pair had raped him and "spoiled" his life, stating that he was too ashamed to tell anyone.

The court had been told that Singh had 22 euros in his pocket when he "scrambled from out the back of the lorry that had taken him across the channel" to this country.

He was helped by people smugglers, to whom his already debt-ridden family paid six-and-a-half lakh rupee – the equivalent of about £6,500 – and who took away his passport.

A number of the witnesses in the case were also illegal immigrants – as were the victims – previously living under the radar but thrust to the police's attention through their involvement with the killer.

The court had heard Singh's family background was one of poverty and tragedy.

Singh was painted by the prosecution as cold blooded, a "determined, practiced and cunning liar".

They said he had told a pack of lies to police and in court, and accused him of "rigging" the scene of the deaths.

He admitted that he had lied to the police out of shame but insisted he had set the record straight.

Singh's defence barrister likened his situation to that of a battered wife and said after years of abuse, one day the worm had "turned".

The deaths shocked the tiny village of Shawbury.

In the early days of the investigation, people assumed Singh, also known as Dave or Shera, was one of the two victims and were genuinely saddened to hear of his death.

People left flowers for Dave and Jim, describing them as a couple of "nice lads", and said how they would miss them.

But when the truth began to emerge, that he was in fact wanted in connection with the two deaths, the air was one of disbelief and their sadness turned to shock.

No-one could imagine that the tiny, softly spoken man could be capable of such a crime. They thought things like that just didn't happen in Shawbury.

They believed the crime had been committed by someone who travelled in from outside the area, not by someone who had been living and working at the very heart of their community.

A man hunt was launched five days after the victims' bodies were discovered, however, within hours Singh was arrested in Smethwick.

Detectives knew little about the dead men, Singh and their backgrounds and are believed to have travelled to India to speak to relatives.

Police hotlines were set up for people in both the UK and India.

Members of Singh's legal team travelled to India in an attempt to build up a background to the case.

They flew out and spent seven days speaking to various members of his family, including his mother, sister, brother and other relatives, to find out about where he had come from, what he was like when he was in his home country, and how and why he came to the UK.

Singh's defence solicitor, Kirandeep Soor, said anthropological and psychiatric reports had been prepared to help put together a picture of the killer.

He said Singh was still in touch with his family.

Mr Soor said at the end of his sentence, Singh was likely to be deported back to India – something he wanted.

"He will be able to get a job, he will attempt to lead the life he led prior to coming to the UK," he said.

Shawbury Fish Bar has reopened since the deaths but the people of the village will never forget the tragedy which rocked the quiet community.nextpageThe scene after the killings in the flat above the chip shopnextpagePolice guarding the scenenextpageFlowers left at the scenenextpageMore of the floral tributes