Questions remain over why DPD worker was murdered while four men on the run still evade justice
Aurman Singh was just 23 when he was attacked and killed by a gang of seven men in Berwick Avenue, Shrewsbury.
The attack had been “brutal” with the men hacking and beating the DPD worker with weapons ranging from a three-foot axe to a machete, cricket bat, golf club, a knife and a wooden stave.
The weapons had been brought from the Black Country by eight men who travelled to Shrewsbury in two cars.
Stafford Crown Court had heard in the five-and-a-half week trial that the attack on Aurman Singh had been quick – less than 30 seconds - and it had been targeted.
The men had 'lain in wait' for the DPD van, driving that morning from Smethwick to Berwick Avenue, where, thanks to the information provided by Sukhmandeep Singh working at the same Stoke-on-Trent DPD depot as Aurman Singh, they knew their victim would be.
The men pounced at around 1.05pm, leaving the DPD employee dying in the street before driving off.
But what was not told to Stafford Crown Court during the trial of Arshdeep Singh, Shivdeep Singh, Manjot Singh, Jagdeep Singh and Sukhmandeep Singh is why they had killed Aurman Singh.
Mr Simon Denison KC who led the prosecution said he had “no evidence” to present to them to suggest a motive, but that it was not necessary to provide a motive to prove murder. And so it turned out.
However, none of the defendants had criminal records. One was married. Most of the others came to the UK from Punjab in India on student visas in the last five years and had decent jobs, fiancées and stable lives.
All of them had insisted that they did not know Aurman Singh, and no evidence was presented by the prosecution team to suggest that they knew him.
So why did they kill him?
The answer may lie in the four men who have so far escaped justice.
Harpreet Singh, Mehakdeep Singh, Harwinder Singh Turna and Sehajpal Singh had travelled to Berwick Avenue in Harpreet Singh's Mercedes and also took part in the attack.
As Aurman Singh lay dying following the assault by the two gangs, the group in the Mercedes dumped their car in Shrewsbury, where they were last seen catching a train to Wolverhampton before they “disappeared into the city”.
While initially the group in the Audi denied knowing the men in the Mercedes, and blamed them solely for the assault on Aurman Singh, this was a lie.
The court had heard how Sehajpal Singh, who is on the run, and convicted man Arshdeep Singh were “cousins” and they both lived with Mehakdeep Singh, who was also in the Mercedes.
The jury had also heard how a number of the men from both cars had been at the same kabaddi tournament in Derby as Aurman Singh the day before the murder.
Kabaddi is a hugely popular sport in the Sikh community, and the England Kabaddi Federation (UK) event in Derby on August 20 had attracted hundreds of fans, but it ended in violence.
Men were seen brandishing knives and shots were fired, leaving one man injured.
Not only was Aurman Singh at the event, but Shivdeep Singh, Manjot Singh and Jagdeep Singh, all convicted of his killing, admitted to being at the tournament too.
The court also heard that wanted man Sehajpal Singh was at the Derby kabaddi tournament that day along with Mehakdeep Singh.
In fact, it was one of their “friends” that had been injured, the court was told, and this man had ended up in a hospital in Nottingham where several of the accused men had gone to visit him.
The next day, Aurman Singh was murdered.
While the court was told Aurman Singh was at the event, no evidence was presented that suggested he was involved in the violence.
But in cross-examining Sukhmandeep Singh on behalf of defendant Arshdeep Singh, Mr Simon Spence KC suggested to the court that the DPD worker had indeed been involved in the violence along with one of the men who had been in the Mercedes on the day he was attacked.
He had said to Sukhmandeep: "Mehakdeep told you about the trouble [in Derby] and that it had involved his group and Aurman Singh."
Mr Spence was not the only one to link the two events.
In the criminal proceedings of three Black Country men accused of the violence in Derby that day, a court was told the murder of Aurman Singh's killing was “a revenge attack for what happened the day before in Derby".
The initial cause behind the violence in Derby that day that led to the subsequent death of Aurman Singh, may, however, remain a mystery while the four men still wanted for his killing remain at large.