A social worker was battered to death with a claw
A social worker was battered to death with a claw hammer by her husband when she tried to leave him after suffering months of violence, a court heard.
Ranjit Sohal, 34, hit wife Jaspal at least 20 times then carefully washed the hammer and put it back in his tool chest.
He called police to his Southall home and officers found Mrs Sohal, 35, lying dead on the bedroom floor with appalling injuries which had shattered her skull.
Hugging one of their four children, Sohal said: She was going to leave me and take my children.
She cannot do it.
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Sohal, who has admitted killing his wife, later claimed the Borough of Ealing residential social worker used to attack him.
He told detectives: ”She beat me, I beat her, one had to die.
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But prosecutor Mr Richard Horwell told the Old Bailey jury the murder was the final act of violence by Sohal against his long-suffering wife.
The couple had married for love with Mrs Sohal rejecting her family’s plans for an arranged marriage.
They believed Mrs Sohal had disappeared when she went to India to marry her husband.
When the couple came to live in Southall, things were still tense, and her side of the family saw very little of Sohal.
The couple had four children and after living in Damson Wood Road, they moved to (1) Rosamun Street.
Sohal been employed in a bakery, but claimed a back injury prevented him from working and his wife became the family bread winner.
‘The marriage certainly went through difficulties.
There were occasions when the defendant was violent to Jaspal,’ said Mr Horwell.
Eighteen months before the killing, Mrs Sohal’s brother went to the house after receiving a telephone call from her.
He took his sister to an abuse centre and to Hounslow police station after finding her in tears and ‘covered in bruises.
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Mrs Sohal had also suffered injuries to her eye and lip and a chipped tooth.
‘In the months that followed the injuries were obvious for Jaspal’s friends and family,’ said Mr Horwell.
‘A colleague mentioned that in the last months of her life she had become introverted and withdrawn.
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Others noticed ‘the spark had gone out of her life.
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‘We suggest that the marriage was deteriorating during those months and there was indeed to be a separation,’ Mr Horwell told the jury.
The court heard how two women neighbours talking into the early hours heard an ominous hammering sound coming from the Sohal’s home at around 3am in the morning of June 11 last year.
At 5.
51am Sohal dialed 999 and told the operator ‘he needed the police because he had killed his wife some ten to fifteen minutes before.
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When officers arrived at the door he announced: ‘She’s upstairs.
She’s finished.
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Asked what had happened, he added: ‘We had an argument, that’s all.
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‘There in the main bedroom, they discovered the body of Jaspar Sohal,’ said Mr Horwell.
‘She was on the floor, lying on her back, her head between the bed and a chest of drawers.
She obviously had very severe head injuries.
‘She also had wounds to her hands and arms, you may think defensive injuries, putting up her hands and arms to ward off blows and of course, to protect her head.
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There were also the marks of the claw hammer in the bedroom wall.
The murder weapon was later found in Sohal’s tool chest in an airing cupboard.
Forensic examination revealed tiny traces of his wife’s blood which had not been removed when he washed the hammer.
When interviewed, Sohal claimed his wife would beat him ’24 hours a day’
At one stage he admitted ending his wife’s life saying: ‘I do not know how I killed her, I was sleeping at the time.
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But later he blamed relatives for the murder.
Mr Horwell said Sohal now admits manslaughter, claiming he was suffering from a mental condition which diminished his responsibility.
He concluded: The prosecution say at the time of the killing he was not suffering from an abnormality of mind that substantially diminished his responsibility.
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‘That is the issue for you to decide in this case.
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Sohal denies murder.
The trial continues.
ends
