Double killer Sukhdev Singh was today starting a prison sentence for the manslaughter of two men above a Shropshire chip shop.
The 27-year-old illegal immigrant killed Jaswant Singh, 30, and 31-year-old Kulwant Singh using a hammer and ligatures in a flat above Shawbury Fish Bar where he lived in the early hours of December 7 last year.
He claimed he feared they were about to sexually assault him and they had made his life a misery.
He was ordered to serve five-and-a-half years for the manslaughter of each of the men, to run concurrently, when he appeared at Shrewsbury Crown Court yesterday.
He was convicted of their murder at the end of a three-week trial at Stafford Crown Court last month. He was cleared of two charges of murder.
Today, the detective who led the investigation welcomed the prison sentence imposed on Indian-born Singh.
Detective Chief Inspector Dave Morgan said police faced a number of obstacles in their inquiries.
“Firstly the fact the defendant made off, he was on the run for five days,” he said.
“He had made a significant attempt to clean any forensic evidence at the flat which obviously impacts on the ability of people to interpret it.
“When he was in custody, he initially denied being involved for two days and then came up with different versions which by the time he came to court had mutated.”
Mr Morgan said the issue of language had also impacted on the investigation and court proceedings.
Singh spoke no English when he arrived in this country three years ago in the back of a lorry from Calais with the help of people smugglers.
Mr Morgan said: “It doesn’t help when you have to conduct an investigation in a foreign language, but we have been well supported by interpreters and the trial has been supported by an interpreter.”
Mr Morgan said he now hoped the victims’ families could now start to come to terms with what had happened.
“In any murder investigation the families are very important to us,” he said.
“We had a fully-trained family liaison officer, who is of Sikh origin, and she has been in constant contact with the family.”
By Deborah Collins
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