{"id":7119,"date":"2014-12-04T12:26:49","date_gmt":"2014-12-04T12:26:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tat.reddaisytrading.co.uk\/index.php\/2014\/12\/04\/cold-blooded-killer-jailed\/"},"modified":"2016-01-07T14:14:16","modified_gmt":"2016-01-07T14:14:16","slug":"cold-blooded-killer-jailed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/2014\/12\/04\/cold-blooded-killer-jailed\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cCold Blooded\u201d Killer Jailed"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Honour crime defendant given 23 years in prison<\/h3>\n

\"\"\/

\nA man who tried to kill his fianc\u00e9 and her lover has been jailed for 23 years. The defendant Bharat Soma slashed the throats of 17-year-old Darshana Narotam and 22-year-old Prashant Govinde in a vicious \u201crevenge\u201d attack.<\/p>\n


\nAfter hearing his sentence Soma held his hands together in a prayer position to the judge and jury in apparent remorse, before stepping down from the dock.<\/p>\n


\nHe was previously found guilty of attempted murder by Leicester Crown Court, the High Court Judge, Mr Justice Saunders said, \u201cThe attack was intended by Mr Soma to be a cold-blooded murder, committed to prevent Darshana from marrying anyone else.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nDarshana had her throat slashed by Soma in a violent attack whilst Prashant was stabbed in the neck, the 15-year-old present was also injured during the incident. It was labelled an honour motivated attack as Soma was betrothed to Darshana but the teenager had eloped with her boyfriend.<\/p>\n


\nThe judge praised the swift action of the police, \u201cFortunately the police were on the scene very quickly and took appropriate steps to stem the two victims\u2019 bleeding, which was considerable.<\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u201cIt may well be that the prompt police action saved the lives of these two young people.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cBoth the jury and I were impressed with the efficient, calm and highly professional way in which the police carried out their duty.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cThe background was that Bharat Soma was engaged to be married to Darshana Narotam, which was arranged by her parents and I\u2019m satisfied Darshana never willingly agreed to it.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cShe never told Soma she wanted to marry him although she agreed to the engagement because she felt she had no option but to go along with her parents\u2019 wishes until she was old enough to be able to marry Prashant without their consent.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\u201cHe went around the streets looking for Darshana so he could kill her.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nMr Justice Saunders added, \u201cImmediately after the attack Soma was repeating \u2018my wife, my wife.\u2019<\/p>\n


\n\u201cThe defendant told the police he lost his mind, because he believed that a curse had been put on him.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nThe judge refrained from giving a life sentence due to Soma\u2019s previous good character. Although Darshana and Prashant have since married and live in a secret address they are still permanently scarred from the attack. However the judge maintained they did not suffer \u201cserious long term harm\u201d.<\/p>\n


\nHe added, \u201cThat\u2019s not to underestimate the ordeal they\u2019ve gone through and the considerable difficulties they still have.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cIt\u2019s hoped they\u2019ll make a good long term recovery.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cThey\u2019ve had to move away from family, friends and jobs because they\u2019re under threat of reprisals from other people \u2013 which is not attributable to Mr Soma.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cI very much hope those threats will now cease.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cThe opinion of Dr Shankar (psychiatrist) is that Mr Soma is suffering from an adjustment disorder with prolonged depressive reaction.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nSoma\u2019s defence counsel, Jo Sidhu QC said that whilst Soma was not suffering from a specific mental illness he was still incredibly affected by Darshana\u2019s refusal to marry him.<\/p>\n


\nMr Sidhu said, \u201cIt made him feel low and he felt very hurt.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cHe got a tip off about where they were and acted on impulse.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cHe feels bad about the effect of his actions and many times he\u2019s cried about it.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cHe\u2019s not wired the same as other people because in his family there\u2019s an unfortunate pattern of suicide; both his father and paternal grandfather killed themselves.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cHis feelings for Darshana remained strong, right up until the day of this attack.\u201d \n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Honour crime defendant given 23 years in prison A man who tried to kill his fianc\u00e9 and her lover has been jailed for 23 years. The defendant Bharat Soma slashed the throats of 17-year-old Darshana Narotam and 22-year-old Prashant Govinde in a vicious \u201crevenge\u201d attack. After hearing his sentence Soma held his hands […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}