Every three days, in our #EveryThreeDays campaign we remember a woman killed by a man.
Previously, this month we have remembered Suzanne Pilley, Raheela Shariff, Louise Smith, Claire Parry and Natalie Hemming.
Today May 17th, we tell the story of Jessica Patel, 34, who was murdered on May 14th 2018, by her husband, Mitesh Patel.
In some respects, Jessica’s murder has echoes of that of Raheela – they were both killed by their husbands, and both worked as pharmacists. Both, too, tried to cover up the crimes. Here the similarity ends, though, because Mitesh Patel was a serial abuser of Jessica.
He did everything possible to isolate Jessica from her family, even moving to Middlesborough from their original home in Halifax. At that point, the domestic abuse increased dramatically, but Mitesh had one more secret – he was gay and had an online affair with a new partner living in Australia.
Planning to move to Australia with his new lover – Mitesh Patel carefully planned Jessica’s murder, which involved staging a false robbery at their home, injecting her with insulin, using gaffa tape to tie her hands and then strangling her with a Tesco plastic bag.
Mitesh’s days of freedom were soon to be curtailed, however – the Police finding significant evidence and charging him with Jessica’s murder. At his trial, he was found guilty and the BBC reported this:
Mitesh Patel, 37, strangled and suffocated Jessica, 34, and then staged a burglary at the couple’s home in Middlesbrough on 14 May.
Jurors heard he had planned to claim a £2m life insurance payout and move to Australia with his lover Dr Amit Patel.
Patel was sentenced to life and told he would serve a minimum of 30 years.
Sentencing Patel, Mr Justice Goss told him: “You have no remorse for your actions. Any pity you have is for yourself.”
He told the defendant that Mrs Patel “clearly loved you and was a dutiful wife” of nine years, adding: “She wanted nothing more than to have children and live an everyday family life.
As I research the stories of women being killed by men – it becomes clearer to me how controlling and abusive some men are. Jealousy seems to be a significant factor too. Doing all the research is also becoming quite daunting, there are so many shocking stories and reading the various press reports just hammers home how badly women are treated.
To some men, it appears women are a possession and yes, expendable as in Jessica’s story today.
Shocking but true.
Jessica Patel 1984 – 2018
#EveryThreeDays
Authored by Steph @PlaceSteph
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tees-46453025
https://wikibioall.com/jessica-patel/
https://www.leeds-live.co.uk/news/leeds-news/tragic-story-jessica-patel-murdered-18623285
