A MAN accused of murdering his wife had unprotected sex with a male sex worker around the time she was having IVF treatment, a court heard.

Messages recovered from Mitesh Patel’s phone showed him arranging to meet a man for sex in exchange for money, while he was on a trip to Delhi just a month before her death in May 2018. 

Around the same time his wife Jessica was undergoing injections for IVF treatment.

Mr Patel, of The Avenue, Middlesbrough, denies one charge of murder.

Teesside Crown Court heard that he travelled to Delhi at the beginning of April, 2018 and started to talk to a man on gay dating app Grindr.

Jolyon Perks, prosecuting, said Mr Patel asked for unprotected sex, and agreed a fare for sexual acts.

At the time, Jessica Patel was injecting herself with hormones ahead of IVF treatment.

Just weeks later she was found to have googled organ donation - and registered herself as an organ donor.

Mr Patel was a regular user of gay dating apps including Grindr - on which he called himself ‘Prince’ - and a website called ‘fabguys’ At times he gave men his home address and invited them round for sex while Jessica was out.

He told one man on Grindr that he was undergoing treatment for bowel cancer, another that he had stomach cancer.

He also told someone he was chatting to that he and his wife had had twins but that they died aged 12 weeks and 18 weeks from sickle cell disease.

In one exchange he told a man about his rape fantasies.

And in another he said he had a 14-month old son who had been run over and killed.

An exchange between himself and Jessica, in July 2017, revealed that she said she didn’t want further IVF treatment after finding images and texts on his phone and fearing he was not being honest with her.

In an iMessage, she said: “I want to be a mother and to have my own little family was my dream.

“I think it would be right to cancel that for now.”

Mr Patel replied: “I think you are mad. You might forgive me but I won’t forgive you for this.”

He then told her he loved her and she replied: “Are you just saying that to make me go through IVF.”

The couple discovered the IVF round they started in March had failed, just a few weeks before Jess’ death.

In January 2018, Mr Patel was googling ‘Does life insurance pay out if you are murdered’ and in March he was looking up to see if someone could die from a 3ml insulin overdose.

One day in March 2018 he went from searching ‘Polish gay sex’ one moment to ‘twins’ nursery ideas’ the next.

On May 4th, 2018, just over a week before Jessica’s death, he emailed his lover, Amit, who was living in Australia and said: “You know the plan, do you think it will succeed?”

Amit replied: “Only you know the answer.”

Mr Patel went on to say: “do you think it is a bad plan?”

The case continues