R v Sundeep Singh

On 16 December 2024 at the Crown Court in Leicester the appellant, who was born on the 19^th of August 1976 and is now aged 49, was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 31 years less 217 days spent on remand. Although the term reduced by remand days was not announced in court, by our calculation this left a minimum term of 30 years and 148 days. The appellant appeals the length of the minimum term with the leave of the single judge.

On 13 May 2024 the appellant went to the home of his 76-year-old mother, Bhajan Kaur. She was alone. He let himself into her property. He then subjected her to, what was described by the prosecution in opening before the jury, as a savage beating causing widespread bruising and bleeding to her head face arms and body. The pathologist who examined her body found 31 sites of blunt force trauma on external examination and a further three sites on internal examination.

The appellant then placed a plastic bag over the victim’s head held it forcefully to her nose and mouth and smothered her. Afterwards he cleaned up blood from the floor and changed his own bloodstained clothing. He went out and bought a spade and a sack trolley. Returning to the house he loaded his mother’s body onto the trolley and started to dig a grave in the back garden. He was disturbed when his sister Kalbinder Cheema arrived to visit her mother. She found Mrs Kaur’s body and called 999. She saw the appellant at the property. He denied having anything to do with his mother’s death and suggested that his sister was responsible for it. He then left the property and was arrested nearby in possession of a bag containing over £500 in cash and his mother’s bank card. In interview he denied responsibility for Mrs Kaur’s death. At trial the defences were denial and, in the alternative, diminished responsibility; both were rejected by the jury and he was convicted of murder.

Bhajan Kaur lived at an address in Bolsover Street in Leicester which had been the family home she had shared with her husband Shangara Singh. The couple had three children: the appellant, his sister and his brother. Mr Singh died in 2020 and his widow remained living in their home. She required the assistance of carers who attended on weekdays and she received help from the appellant’s siblings.

From 2013 the appellant had stayed regularly at the Bolsover Street address after the breakdown of his marriage. After his father died his behaviour changed. He formed a delusional belief that his father had intended to leave him the family home and that it was his property. He became increasingly aggressive with his mother and other members of the family and on a number of occasions he demanded that his mother leave her home. She became frightened of him and on two occasions made statements to the police about him. Those statements were dated 11 September 2023 and 2 May 2024. She described controlling and coercive behaviour by the appellant. She said he would always ask for money and when she did not give it to him he made her feel bad. On 12 August 2023 he kicked her out of the house shouting and swearing about money and saying that she would take all the money with her when she died. She had locked herself in the house that day but the appellant got in and said “I am going to kill you. Why don’t you take all your tablets in one go and die or use a rope and hang yourself to death.” He went through her purse and took her cash and bank cards and her phone so she could not call anyone. When she asked for her phone and bank card to be returned he told her he didn’t have them and that she was mad. She went to stay with her other son and the locks were changed but the appellant got in again. She returned to the property on 23 August but the day after the police advised her to leave again. She tried to get back into the house on 8 September with the help of the police but the appellant had barricaded the door and she had to return to her son Kuldeep’s house. Police did later assist her to get into the property when she discovered that her gold jewellery worth between £4000 and £5000 was missing. She described herself as scared of the appellant.

The appellant was arrested and interviewed at that time. He denied any offences, saying that his mother was mentally ill. He was told that Land Registry checks showed that he was not the owner of 13 Bolsover Street. He was bailed with conditions not to go to the Bolsover Steet address and not to communicate with his mother.

It seems that Mrs Kaur did not pursue her complaints against the appellant at that stage but on 2 May 2024 she made a further statement. She said that she had acceded to the appellant’s entreaties to be allowed back in the house in December 2023. However, his behaviour had again deteriorated. She described him as bitter towards her, telling her to get out as this was his home and she should go and live with her eldest son. He threatened to stab her carers and his sister with a knife. He called Mrs Kaur mental and said she would be taken away to a mental hospital. When the appellant’s brother attempted to talk to him about his behaviour to his mother the appellant threatened to kill him and his children.

Meanwhile the appellant had told his nephew, Erunn Cheema that there was a will that was not being honoured in relation to 13 Bolsover Street.

As a result of the May statement police arrested the appellant once more. The locks were changed on Mrs Kaur’s home. In interview the appellant said that his mother needed to be moved to a care home. He was released on bail again with conditions of no contact with his mother and a prohibition on going to Bolsover Street. The appellant ignored the conditions and slept in his car which was parked on the driveway of number 13.

Evidence was called which included evidence from the appellants siblings and Harjeet Kaur, Kuldeep Singh’s wife. The two statements from Bhajan Kaur were read to the jury as hearsay. The appellant did not give evidence but psychiatric evidence was called on his behalf from Drs Thirumalai, Davies and Rogers on the issue of diminished responsibility.

The judge did not have a pre-sentence report but he had heard the trial and had the benefit of reports and evidence from three psychiatrists. In those circumstances a pre-sentence report was not required and nor do we require one.

The judge in sentencing addressed the minimum term to be specified in accordance with Schedule 21 of the Sentencing Act 2020. He decided that this was a murder which fell within paragraph 3 of Schedule 21. This paragraph relevantly provides:

On the question of motive the judge said of the appellant:

The judge found there were aggravating factors under paragraph 9 of Schedule 21 namely that the deceased was particularly vulnerable because of her age, there had been previous controlling and coercive behaviour towards the victim by the appellant and he had attempted to conceal her body. In addition, the killing had taken place in Mrs Kaur’s own home and there had been an intent to kill. The judge said these factors would elevate the minimum term to 36 years but he then applied mitigating factors namely: a lack of premeditation, the fact that the victim’s loss of consciousness would have been rapid so there had been no long period of mental or physical suffering and, most significantly, he took into account the appellant’s mental illness. Balancing the aggravating and mitigating features of the case the judge reached a minimum term of 31 years.

We note that the transcript of the judge’s sentencing remarks appears to suggest that the judge wrongly treated the appellant’s intent to kill as an aggravating factor. In fairness to the judge, the transcript is ambiguous on this point. The relevant section reads as follows:

The judge may have intended to confine his reference to “further aggravation” to the location of the killing. Having, however, announced his conclusion on the appellant’s specific intent in the second half of the same sentence, he gave the impression of treating that intent as aggravating the murder. It would have been better had he dealt with intent to kill in relation to mitigation, by noting that the intent to kill negated the otherwise applicable mitigating factor in paragraph 10(a).

Mr Lloyd-Jones KC submits that the learned judge erred in placing this case within paragraph 3 of schedule 21. He submits this was not a murder done for gain. He draws our attention to the bracketed language in paragraph 3(2)(c), which he submits makes clear the will of Parliament as to the type of murder this category is intended to include. He submits that spontaneous killing, as in this case, does not come within this wording. He further submits that the judge did not identify the basis upon which he reached the conclusion that this was a murder for gain. He submits that the judge’s findings as to the appellant’s motives were unclear and contradictory and that he appeared to have excluded cash as the motive for the murder before going on to say that he was sure the motive was either to obtain cash, the house or both.

Mr Lloyd-Jones KC submits that on the evidence the judge could not properly have been sure that cash was stolen as a precursor to, and/or as a catalyst for, the killing. He submits it is more likely that the cash found on the appellant was stolen after the murder.

As to the appellant killing in order to obtain the house, he submits that the appellant had the delusional belief that he already owned the house. He argues that on the evidence it was not open to the judge to exclude the possibility that the killing was carried out for some reason other than a wish to obtain possession of the property and that in accordance with R v King [2017] EWCA Crim 128 he should have sentenced on the basis most favourable to the appellant.

In the alternative Mr Lloyd-Jones KC submits that if this was properly characterised as a murder for gain then the judge did not properly take into account the case of R v Tailor [2007] EWCA Crim 1564 followed in R v Hoadley EWCA Crim 1885. Mr Lloyd-Jones KC relies on what was said in the former case by Mitting J at paragraph 20

Mr Lloyd-Jones KC submits that the judge should have come down from the 30-year starting point before applying aggravating and mitigating factors. As to those factors he submits that, on the evidence, the appellant had not been physically violent to his mother before the killing and the judge failed to give sufficient weight to the lack of pre-meditation. Finally, he submits that the judge failed to give sufficient weight to the fact that the appellant suffers from a mental disorder which lowers his culpability. It is submitted that he had not previously been convicted of any offence, and he would not have committed this offence absent his chronic, persistent psychotic disorder. He elaborated on the severity of that disorder before us.

For the respondent Mr Vout KC submits that the judge was entitled to conclude that this was a murder for gain relating either to the house or to obtaining cash as the case was always centred on the house and money. He relied on the statements of Bhajan Kaur to which we have already referred. He submitted that the bracketed words in paragraph 3 (2) (c) of Schedule 21 are not exhaustive. Further, he says that the evidence in this case did not support a conclusion that the killing was carried out for mixed motives and that the judge correctly analysed the sentencing issues.

David Clarke J in the case of R v Healey [2008] EWCA Crim 2583 said, at paragraph 20, that ‘The judge was entitled to form his own view, having heard the evidence, on whether the murder was or was not done for gain.’ We have read the documents in this case with care. In our view there was evidence upon which the judge in this case, who heard the trial, was entitled to be satisfied that this murder was done for gain.

Looking at the evidence of what led up to the murder, and particularly what is contained in the appellant’s interviews and the statements of the victim, Bhajan Kaur, there was evidence that the appellant had threatened to kill the victim, had induced her to give him money, had used controlling behaviour towards her, had stolen from her and had tried to force her to leave her house on a number of occasions because of his deluded belief that he owned the property. Mr Lloyd-Jones KC suggests that in the drafting of Schedule 21 Parliament did not contemplate a case in which the motivation for the murder was the result of a delusion caused by mental illness. We note, however, that although the appellant was undoubtedly suffering from a mental illness at the time of the murder, the jury rejected his defence of diminished responsibility. In those circumstances Schedule 21 is to be applied, and the issue of mental illness falls to be considered under paragraph 10 (c) which identifies as a mitigating factor ‘the fact that the offender suffered from any mental disorder or mental disability which (although not falling within section 2(1) of the Homicide Act 1957) lowered the offender's degree of culpability’.

Throughout his police interviews the appellant kept returning to the theme of his supposed right of ownership of his mother’s house. In his final interview the appellant talked of the relevance of 4 years of history (i.e. since 2020 which was when his father died) to the death of his mother. The officer asked ‘So, you’re not gonna tell me how that links to the death of your mum?’ and he replied ‘ All of it does. It’s all, it all started from this, it all started from this point, going on for four years okay. If you don’t investigate that then you’re not looking at the bigger picture all you’re doing is depicting at a little part okay, and that’s what you’re doing, you’re depicting at a little part of what’s happened, I told you from the beginning that you need to look at that, said it over and over again I made complaints to. Erm I’m sure that Rumandeep made a cla, a complaint to the IPCC as well and they did nothing’ and he repeated this saying ‘Yeah, that’s it, I didn’t kill my mum, no I did not do that okay and it’s all part of it okay over the last four years, it’s the bigger picture, it’s not just that little, little tiny part that your depicting at, at the moment.’

The judge, who heard all the evidence at trial, was clear that this was a murder for gain although his reasons for arriving at that conclusion may inadvertently have been expressed in a way that lacked some clarity. We agree reading the sentencing remarks that the judge was not saying that he was sure that the murder was done to obtain cash, and the evidence did not support such a finding. However, in our assessment there was evidence upon which the judge could properly conclude that the murder was the culmination of a campaign of aggression by which the appellant tried to force his mother out of the house so he could take possession of it, whatever may have been the proximate trigger for the killing and whether or not the killing would also achieve other ends. The killing itself was not the result of a single impulsive act, such as a single stab in anger, but a determined and persistent attack on a defenceless elderly woman, indicating, as the judge duly found, that although he could not say there was premeditation, there was an intention to kill.

Although the defendant, in his police interview, denied the killing, it is in our view significant that he linked it to four years of history covering the period when he felt he had been wrongly dispossessed of the house. He took steps to conceal his mother’s body, tried to cast suspicion on others, lied about his own movements and in interview maintained to the police that the house was his. Taking an objective view of the evidence, we are satisfied that this murder is correctly categorised as a murder done in the expectation of gain.

That said, we have considered what is said in Tailor and Hoadley about a distinction to be drawn between domestic killings for gain where there is a mixture of motives and murders for gain carried out by professional criminals, and whether this should bring the term down from 30 years before considering aggravating and mitigating factors. We take the view that the minimum term should come down on this basis; nevertheless, this was a brutal killing and the aggravating factors identified then justify an upward adjustment. We then apply the most significant mitigating feature of the case, the appellant’s serious mental illness. Although the jury rejected diminished responsibility there is no doubt that the appellant had longstanding mental health issues. Dr Thirumalai in his report dated 5/11/24 stated

In the circumstances we are persuaded that, although the case was correctly placed within schedule 21 paragraph 3(2) (c) by the sentencing judge, there should have been some initial reduction from the starting point in accordance with the case of Tailor. The intention to kill should not have been treated as an aggravating factor if, as appears to be the case, the judge so treated it. After an upward adjustment to take into account the other aggravating features identified by the judge, in our view the minimum term should then be reduced to reflect the appellant’s mental illness. Although the jury decided that his mental health issues did not afford the appellant a defence of diminished responsibility, we consider, as did the sentencing judge, that his delusional disorder significantly reduced his culpability.

Accordingly, we allow the appeal and quash the minimum term of 31 years less 217 remand days. We replace it with a minimum term of 25 years less time spent on remand. In accordance with the guidance given in Sesay [2024] EWCA Crim 483, we have performed the necessary calculation so as to arrive at the precise term. The new minimum term is one of 24 years and 148 days.

Finally, it has been drawn to our attention that the record sheet states that a statutory surcharge was made in the sum of £228. However, it would appear from the sentencing remarks that the Judge did not impose it, although he had a duty to do so pursuant to s42 Sentencing Act 2020. Where the surcharge has not been ordered by the Judge but added administratively, this Court has held that the order is not lawful (R v Jones [2018] EWCA Crim 2994, [2019] 1 Cr. App. R. (S.) 50 at [15]). In those circumstances, in accordance with the procedure followed in Jones, we order that the Crown Court record be corrected to remove the surcharge, as, notwithstanding that the order was mandatory, the Court held it was precluded by s11(3) Criminal Appeal Act 1968 from correcting the position and imposing the surcharge.