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Gay bank worker Jasvir Ginday guilty of murdering wife and incinerating her body
Gay bank worker Jasvir Ginday guilty of murdering wife and incinerating her body
(about 2 hours later)
A gay bank worker has been given a life sentence with a minimum of 21 years for murdering his wife and then burning her body in an incinerator, after she threatened to reveal his homosexuality.
A judge jailed an “unbelievably callous” bank worker for life for murdering his new Indian wife to prevent her revealing that he was gay, and burning her body.
A jury found Jasvir Ginday guilty of Varkha Rani's murder after a three-week trial at Wolverhampton Crown Court.
Jasvir Ginday, 29, is thought to have strangled his young bride with a vacuum cleaner pipe before disposing of her body in a patio incinerator. He told neighbours that he was disposing of general rubbish.
He had already admitted manslaughter and perverting the course of justice by attempting to dispose of the 24-year-old's remains in a patio incinerator in the back garden of their marital home in Walsall, West Midlands.
Ginday was described as a meticulous planner who was caught on camera filling a plastic bottle with fuel at a local petrol station on the day that he killed his wife, Varkah Rani. The murder came just a month after she had come to Britain to live with his family.
The 29-year-old initially told police his Indian wife, who had only been in Britain for three weeks, had left him following a dispute at their home. The couple had married during a lavish ceremony attended by 700 guests last year.
Judge John Warner told Ginday that he had behaved “with a complete lack of any humanity”.
Then throughout his trial he claimed he had accidentally killed Ms Rani while restraining her with a vacuum cleaner hose, after she had apparently threatened to expose his homosexuality to family and friends.
“I am satisfied that you intended to kill – you are a devious, controlling man and a meticulous planner in a number of aspects of your life,” the judge told Ginday as he sentenced him to a minimum of 21 years.
Recounting the killing, he told the jury that his wife had come at him in the bedroom, "thrashing", and he was "trying to calm her down".
“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.
The pair ended up on the floor, at which point he claimed he grabbed the metal pipe of a vacuum cleaner and "in the spur of the moment" held it against her neck.
“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.”
Ginday asserted that he then "panicked", dragged his new bride to the patio incinerator, and placed her inside with the help of a metal pole. After killing her, he went and told relatives his wife had left him.
Undated handout photo issued by West Midlands Police of the home of Jasvir Ginday and Varkha Rani Ginday, 29, from Walsall, worked for the Royal Bank of Scotland and was planning to take up a job with the Financial Ombudsman Service. He married his wife in March last year in a lavish ceremony with 700 guests in India.
Undated handout photo issued by West Midlands Police of the home of Jasvir Ginday and Varkha Rani The following day, when two police officers carried out a search of the house for clues as to Ms Rani's whereabouts, Ginday's story of his missing wife began to unravel.
Varkah Rani, 24, came to Britain to live with Ginday at his parents’ home five months later, but was a vulnerable woman living thousands of miles from home, who had been deceived by her husband.
In the back garden, a constable asked Ginday about the cause of a "ridiculous" smell emanating from his yard.
“It was a very cruel situation in which you put her,” said the judge. “You have told lie after lie about a number of matters such that it is impossible to rely on anything you say.”
Ginday at first replied "ashes" but then corrected himself, saying: "I mean leaves".
The killer had claimed that his wife had attacked him, taken £500 and then walked out of their home. But the scratches on his face when he was arrested were attributed to the victim’s desperate attempts to save her own life.
Officers then approached the incinerator and discovered the "terrible sight" of Ms Rani's badly burned remains.
Officers discovered the body burned beyond recognition after confronting Ginday about fires in the incinerator over two days. They also discovered a fire-damaged mattress in parkland behind the couple’s home.
A post-mortem examination was unable to establish a definitive cause of death, but recorded that Ms Rani had a "reddening" of her throat and, after death, had received at least 12 blows to the head from a rounded object, which the prosecution said had been caused by Ginday using a metal pole to push her body further down into the incinerator.
Speaking after the case, Detective Chief Inspector Sarbjit Johal, the senior investigating officer, said: “Ginday got married as a matter of convenience – he tricked a poor, innocent girl into marriage but was living a lie.”
During the trial, it emerged that Ginday had entertained concerned family members at his home who were worried over what they believed was Ms Rani's disappearance while his wife’s body was in the incinerator.
Ms Rani’s cousin, Sunil Kumar, said in a statement: “No words can truly express the sadness and hurt my family and I are experiencing at the loss of Varkha.
Ms Rani's cousin, Sunil Kumar issued a statement following the guilty verdict that said: "No words can truly express the sadness and hurt my family and I are experiencing at the loss of Varkha. She was loved dearly by all, she had a great passion for life and doted on her family.
“She was loved dearly by all, she had a great passion for life and doted on her family. Unfortunately she fell prey to Ginday, who had ulterior motives which Varkha would not have appreciated.”
Detective Chief Inspector Sarbjit Johal, the officer in charge of the murder inquiry, said after the trial: "How Varka met her death still remains a mystery. Her body was badly damaged but it was clear to the pathologist that she was dead when she was put into the incinerator.
"Ginday got married as a matter of convenience - he tricked a poor innocent girl into marriage but was living a lie.
"When she uncovered the truth, he could not live with it and killed her quickly, then tried to dispose of her body and her possessions by burning them.
"Had another day passed before police attended, Ginday may well have successfully removed all traces of Varkha."
