An illegal immigrant accused of a double murder at a Shropshire flat told police the victims had made his life a misery, a court has heard.

told officers his colleague and flatmate Jaswant Singh had treated him “really bad” and had “got physical” with him, Stafford Crown Court heard yesterday. 

And he said 30-year-old Jaswant Singh, also known as Jim, and his 31-year-old friend Kulwant Singh, also known as John, would make him cry, the court was told. 

Singh, 27, denies murdering the men at a flat above the Shawbury Fish Bar, Shawbury, between December 5 and 8 last year. 

The court heard yesterday that Sukhdev Singh just wanted to keep Jaswant Singh “happy”. 

In a police interview he told officers: “I felt sad but I didn’t want to lose my work because I didn’t know anyone else here and it would have been hard for me to find work because I spent a lot of money to get here. 

“Two or three times he got physical with me and he threw me on the floor.” 

The defendant told officers he was made to do all the cleaning in the flat, the court heard.

Painful

“It was painful to me because they were making me always do the work,” he said. 

“Sometimes when we were having food at night they would make fun of me. They used to really hurt me. 

“I used to say to them ‘don’t do this to me’ they would say to me that ‘this is how I am and if you want work here… otherwise go’.

Singh told officers the pair had grabbed hold of him and taken his clothes off forcibly. 

He said: “I just used to cry and just sit down quietly. I felt really bad about this, about what they were doing to me. 

“I never said anything to them or gave them any pain. I worked so hard and they still treated me like this. 

“They used to torture me and they used to get happy about doing this. They treated me really badly.” 

But Singh told officers the pair were not his enemies, the court heard.

He said: “I liked them but when they used to torment me I felt bad then. Whatever has happened, whatever I have done, I never wanted to do it. I was thinking ‘I just want to go to India. I don’t want to hurt anyone’.”

The trial continues.

By Deborah Collins