PHARMACIST Jessica Patel was strangled and suffocated with a Tesco Bag For Life, a court has heard.

Mitesh Patel was found with three scratches on his neck on the night his wife was killed in their Victorian red-brick house in Middlesbrough, Teesside Crown Court was told.

Nicholas Campbell QC, prosecuting, said the husband claimed he came in from a walk in the Linthorpe area to find the house had been burgled.

Mrs Patel's wrists had been bound with duct tape which, the prosecution said, the husband had done after he killed her.

The barrister said: "Jessica Patel had been killed as a result of pressure being brought to bear on her neck. She was strangled.

"The prosecution case was that a plastic shopping bag, ironically a Tesco Bag For Life, was used both as a ligature and to suffocate her."

After killing her, Patel stage-managed the scene by ransacking the house, jurors were told.

But he left religious artefacts in the house's prayer room, items he had previously included in a list of things he wanted to take with him when he emigrated to Australia, Mr Campbell said.

He left the house after killing her and was noticed to be behaving strangely, the court heard.

He then returned home, tried to hide the hard drive of the house CCTV system in a suitcase of clothes under a mattress, and only four minutes after he got home did he call 999.

By then, his wife had been dead for an hour, Mr Campbell said.

Earlier the court was told it was the accused's intention that intruders would be blamed.

Mr Campbell told jurors: "The prosecution case is that this is a lie.

"You will hear that it was Mr Mitesh Patel, the defendant, who murdered Jessica Patel.

"You will hear that he planned to kill her for some time.

"He has sought information about how to do it including searching online about strangulation, and how long did it take using that method for the victim to die."

The couple were alone in the house together when she was murdered, the prosecution said.

The prosecution said they did not have to prove evidence of a motive, but there was "ample", Mr Campbell said, as there were various life insurance policies in his wife's name worth £2 million if she died.

Mr Campbell said: "He was planning to use the money to start a new life in Australia and that life would be shared with the person who he really loved, one who he regarded as his soul mate, another man, a doctor by the name Amit Patel."

Before the prosecution opening, jurors were told the defendant had used the Grindr app to meet men for sex.

After the killing, police were to discover Patel had had sexual encounters with many men behind his wife's back, the court heard.

The couple had known each other since childhood, growing up in West Yorkshire's Hindu community, and were married in 2009.

But in 2012, the husband met "the man of his dreams", Mr Campbell said, and he intended to spend his life with him.

As far back as then, Patel began to make a list of the things he would take with him to Australia to start a new life with the man, the court heard.

Amit Patel was to marry a woman to please his mother, against Mitesh Patel's wishes, but later divorced. Mr Campbell said: "As Amit Patel was to put it to Mitesh Patel - 'both of us are mummy's boys'."

A text conversation the two shared in 2012 was seen by Jessica Patel's younger sister and she took a photo of the screen.

The two men refer to a "love toy" and send each other kisses and the discussion was eventually shown to Jessica Patel, who was upset. But it did not lead to the breakdown of their marriage.

They moved to Middlesbrough where they bought a pharmacy, where staff sometimes saw evidence of his cruelty, calling her stupid and lying about her being pregnant, Mr Campbell said.

One employee saw CCTV footage of Mitesh Patel bringing a man into the pharmacy and kissing him.

Staff also saw him using the Grindr app on his phone, which he would leave on the counter.

His wife also found graphic sexual pictures of men on his mobile devices, which he later said were "banter".

In messages discussing IVF treatment, Mrs Patel said she was reluctant to go through with it, given the images she had seen.

When her husband failed to persuade her to go through with it, he messaged her: "Ok then I'm telling you this then we are parting ways."

Mr Campbell said Patel wanted to have children, his wife was the means to do it and he pressured her to go through with IVF.

After Amit Patel moved to Australia, he continued contact with Mitesh Patel and the pair hoped to bring up a child Jessica Patel conceived, Mr Campbell said.

"How was that to be achieved?" he asked. "Well, as far as this defendant was concerned, by killing Jessica Patel."

The court heard that internet searches in January 2013 found he had looked up "I need to kill my wife" and "insulin overdose" and "hiring hitman UK".

When he was arrested, police found insulin in syringes in his laptop bag.

Mr Campbell said when Patel visited India for a relative's funeral he had unprotected sex with a male prostitute for 2,000 rupees (around £21). The couple underwent several rounds of IVF and in March three embryos were created.

In the same month she was killed, Patel told a neighbour his wife was very trusting and that "one day she would end up getting murdered," Mr Campbell said.

And during a family holiday to the Canaries that same month, he messaged Amit Patel to say: "You know this plan, do you think we will succeed?"

Amit Patel replied: "Only you know the answer."

The defendant got no reply when he responded: "Do you think it is a bad plan?"

  • The case continues