Curry poisoner gets minimum 23 year sentence for murder of "lover" after refusing to leave fiancee

By Caroline Gammell [London Telegraph]
Published: 3:46PM GMT 11 Feb 2010

Lakhvir Gaur Singh murdered Lakhvinder “Lucky” Cheema when she learned that he had rejected her and chosen a younger bride, Gurjeet Choough. Singh, 45, laced their vegetable curry with aconite, nicknamed the Queen of Poisons, which left Mr Cheema dying in agonising pain. His fiancée spent three days in a coma after the poisoning in January last year and has yet to recover fully.

Singh looked close to tears in the dock at the Old Bailey as she was told she would be nearly 70 by the time she was released. Passing a life sentence, Judge Paul Worsley said: You were not just a spurned lover, you did not simply explode in anger at your rejection. “You set about a cold and calculating revenge. You knew how deadly aconite was and how agonising the effects would be.”

Singh, a married mother of three, was found guilty of murder and grievous bodily harm but was cleared of attempting to poison 39-year-old Mr Cheema on an earlier occasion. Many of Mr Cheema’s relatives were in the public gallery to watch as Singh was sentenced.

His fiancee, now 23, said: “The poisoning led to Lakhvinder’s death and took me to the brink of death. I believe it will affect me for the rest of my life. I can never forgive Lakhvir as she has murdered one person and seriously harmed me. “Lakhvinder was looking forward to having children and also having his elderly father with us but none of this is now possible.”

Mr Cheema’s sister Narinder Kaur Singh, from Windsor, said her life and that of her two sons had been destroyed by Singh’s actions. “With Lakhvinder’s departure I cannot see any reason for living. In our culture a family goes on only through a sin but this has been snatched away from our family. All our joys have been snatched away.”

Mrs Singh, 48, said her husband Varinder – whom Singh tried to blame – had left the family home and she was spurned by her in-laws. “I feel as if there is only emptiness in my life. When my brother was alive he could not bear to see me crying, now I am left to cry for the rest of my life.”