A court has heard how a “coercive and controlling” husband murdered his 19-year-old wife in their home in Ash Tree Way, Shirley, just months after he moved from India.
Sentencing: Sahil Sharma appeared at Kingston Crown Court on Friday, when he was sentenced to 14 years
Sahil Sharma, 24, was jailed on Friday for the murder last October of Mehak Sharma, at a sentencing hearing at Kingston Crown Court. He is to serve 14 years in jail, but if ever given parole, is to remain on licence for life.
Sahil Sharma had been found guilty of murder at a trial in the same court in February.
His young wife, Mehak Sharma, was one of 11 victims murdered in Croydon in 2023.
The court heard that Sahil Sharma stabbed Mehak Sharma repeatedly in the neck before dialling 999 and telling the operator: “I have killed my wife.”
During the call, he claimed that Mehak had been cheating on him and was therefore “responsible” for her death. The court heard that Mehak’s claims were untrue.
Murderer: Sahil Sharma
Mehak, from a village in the Punjab, had moved to Britain on a student visa in November 2022. She had married Sahil Sharma in June of the same year. He joined her in London in June 2023.
Kingston Crown Court heard during Sharma’s sentencing that he had mentally and physically abused Mehak throughout the course of their marriage.
Prosecutor Julian Evans told the court: “While he was still in India and Mehak was in the UK, Sahil would call her repeatedly and expect she answer each time. She would be admonished by her employers for being on the phone while also being abused by her husband for not answering his calls.
“If Mehak was on the phone to her mother, Sahil would ask her to send screenshots to prove this. He became increasingly suspicious of her and accused her of lying about her whereabouts.”
Evans said things became physical when Sharma moved to Britain. “On one occasion, the defendant twisted her arm, slapped her and smashed her phone.
“In September 2023, Mehak called her mother, highly distressed, and told her Sahil had grabbed her neck – causing her to ‘feel her veins’.”
The court heard that Sharma had threatened he would kill her mother and siblings if Mehak reported him to the police.
But records show that Mehak still called 999 on three occasions. “On September 12, 2023, she told the operator the defendant had been torturing her,” Evans said. “She said this was mental not physical.
“On October 22, she called 999 again and repeated that he was torturing her. She said he believed she was having an affair. On October 23, she said he was torturing her and had slapped her.
Murder scene: police vehicles parked outside the Sharmas’ house on Ash Tree Way in Shirley last October
“She told the operator: ‘I do not need anything now, but if something wrong happens to me in the future, I need people to know that he was responsible’. In the background, the defendant could be heard saying: ‘What wrong thing could I do to you?’”
Mehak had also frequently called her mother, Madhu Bala, and said Sharma was “harassing” her.
“On 29 October, there was extensive telephone contact between Mehak and her mother,” Evans said. “Madhu said that that day, her daughter was very scared, very distressed. It was the first time she had really cried to her mother.
“Before, she had said she feared it was a mistake marrying Sahil but that she hoped things would get better. But now, she told her mother: ‘Sahil is not going to become a better person’. She told her mother this was the worst day of her life because of the taunting and harassment she had received the night before. He said she was the problem and accused her of having an affair. There was no truth whatsoever to these suspicions.”
The court heard that Mehak asked her mother if she could speak to Sharma’s parents to arrange a way to reimburse them. Sharma’s parents had financed Mehak’s student visa – but she later said her family, who described themselves as “poor”, would have to pay it back if she and their son separated.
While Mehak was at work on October 29, Sharma repeatedly texted and called her but she did not respond. Evans said: “He told her: ‘God will punish you because you are cheating me.’
“In another text, he said: ‘Come home and see what I can do to you’. He continued in a series of messages: ‘Your lie has been caught now, sweetie’.
There were other texts: “Sweetie, the one you are with, I know who it is. Pick up the phone now.”
And: “Tell me, say you are a two-timer.”
Crown prosecutor Evans said that Mehak asked her mother to keep the call running when she got home from work as she was scared. “Ms Bala heard Sharma ask, ‘Who are you talking to?’ She asked him, ‘What is wrong with you today? Why are you torturing me continuously?’
“Ms Bala then heard her daughter say, ‘Get away from me, let me pass.’ Then the call cut off.”
When Sharma called 999 at around 4.15pm, he told the operator he had murdered Mehak.
He also repeated multiple times throughout the call that she had been cheating on him. “He said that she was responsible for her death,” Evans said.
Victim: Mehak Sharma was subjected to mental and physical abuse and controlling behaviour before being killed last October
“We reject entirely the defendant’s claims that Mehak was having an affair. These were used to minimise his culpability and tarnish her honour.”
Evans also read out a victim impact statement on behalf of Mehak’s mother. She said: “The person who did this to her was her husband, a man who should have protected her. The place he did this to her was her own home, where she should have been safe.”
Bala described her daughter as “a hard-working girl” who loved education and wanted to travel the world. “But he took these dreams from her.”
“I am unable to eat since Mehak’s death because Sahil murdered her when she was starving. She told me during our last phone call that there had been no food in the house and she was so hungry. She had bought food and was going to cook but he murdered her before she could eat. She will forever be hungry and therefore so will I.
“Sahil has not just murdered Mehak,” she said. “I feel he has killed me too.”
Judge Sarah Plaschkes KC, sentencing, told Sharma: “You harassed Mehak from almost a year before her death. You subjected her to violence.
“You accused her of cheating on you. But your suspicions were the product of your own imagination. No blame or shame should be attached to Mehak.
“This was a heinous crime. While you have expressed remorse, this is tempered by you continuing to blame Mehak.
“You have attempted to distance yourself from your actions and minimise your culpability.”
Judge Plaschkes sentenced Sharma to a minimum of 14 years and 187 days in prison, after deducting the time already spent on remand.
She said that he may never be released on parole – but if he is, he will spend the rest of his life on licence.
- If you’re a victim of domestic abuse, or know someone who is, and there’s an emergency that’s ongoing or life is in danger, call 999 immediately.
- For those with a hearing or speech impairment, the Met has a textphone service of 18000.
- Or you can text the police on 999 if you’ve pre-registered with the emergencySMS service.
- Those who are affected by domestic abuse can also report it in the safety of the local police station.
Read more: Croydon in 2023: London’s borough with most murder victims
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2024, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SEVENTH successive year in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
14 years? That is an incentive to do harm to others.
14 years is that all her life was worth in the absence of hanging the sentence should be natural life .
It is the personal opinion of the website’s editor that the death penalty is an abhorrence.
It does the argument against executing people no good when “soft penalties” for horrific murders such as this are handed down.
Someone at the CPS no doubt might be able to explain the “tariffs” that judges have to follow in sentencing.
But this killer could be out on parole before he is 35 – and that, surely, would serve no one’s idea of “justice”.
Poor lady and so young , RIP