00:00:10
MITESH PATEL: I've
just come home and the house is ransacked. And she's just on the floor.
00:00:15
She's got duct tape all over her
and she's, like, unconscious. NARRATOR: Pharmacist
Mitesh Patel
00:00:20
finds his wife
Jessica unresponsive on their living room floor. Minutes earlier, he'd
been ordering pizza
00:00:34
at his local
takeaway, apparently oblivious to his wife's plight. He came in. He paid with cash.
00:00:41
I gave him his pizza, shook
his hand, then he left. NARRATOR: Mitesh tells
police that his wife
00:00:45
had been the victim of
a burglary gone wrong. Later, he'll tell friends too. He had given me a cuddle.
00:00:51
I mean, I'm no body
language expert, but it was just
such a false cry. You don't know
people very well,
00:00:56
do you, until dark
secrets come out. NARRATOR: What were the
secrets lurking deep
00:01:03
within the marriage
of Mr. And Mrs. Patel? [music playing] Owning their own pharmacy had
been a dream for both Mitesh
00:01:43
and Jessica Patel. And in 2015, that
ambition was realized. On the face of it,
they had it all.
00:01:52
AMIR ABD: They lived on the
avenue, which is literally just around the corner from here.
00:01:56
It's probably about
a five-minute walk. It's a really beautiful
area, big houses.
00:02:02
Not everybody can afford
them type of homes. FOUAD JAWAD: He make it
a very nice pharmacy.
00:02:06
It's very big. And everyone liked his
pharmacy because it's not just a pharmacy.
00:02:12
He make everything on it. Everyone who needs something,
you go to his pharmacy. NARRATOR: Working in the
takeaway, three doors away
00:02:19
from the pharmacy, pizza
chef Amir welcomed the Patels as regular customers. She was a nice woman
from what I've seen of her.
00:02:27
She was quite pleasant. SCOTT SUMNERS: She
was always dead quiet. And she was always
nice enough to you.
00:02:32
Got to know her well. And then after that,
once you got to know her, she opened up a bit more.
00:02:36
She was quite a bubbly person. She was just-- you couldn't have
a bad word to say about her,
00:02:41
to be honest with you. Mitesh is a regular guy. He came in. He's quiet. He's pleasant,
polite, respectful,
00:02:49
from what I've seen of him. NARRATOR: The Patels,
apparently a classic success story of young
professionals making
00:02:57
good in a happy marriage. But there was much the
outside world did not know about Mr. And Mrs. Patel.
00:03:04
Theirs was a story
that began as children and progressed within a tight,
supportive Hindu community.
00:03:10
When it came to family,
Jessica was a traditionalist. She wanted to settle
down, have children.
00:03:16
You could tell she just
wanted to have kids because she used to be dead
fussy the other kids,
00:03:21
like their nieces and nephews. NARRATOR: And who better to fall
for than a man that she'd known
00:03:25
since childhood? They both grew up
in West Yorkshire in the large Hindu
community there.
00:03:31
They were the same
age, and so they were part of a whole bunch of
kids that would play together.
00:03:36
NEIL LANCASTER: She was
described by her parents as well-behaved,
quiet, and well liked.
00:03:41
She had a good
circle of friends, and was generally
considered to be a really good, well respected girl.
00:03:46
Hindu communities are very
invariably very religious. And they tend to marry
somebody that they will know
00:03:52
or somebody within their family,
or somebody within a very tight-knit community.
00:03:57
NARRATOR: As they
grew up, they went their different ways,
until meeting up again
00:04:00
when studying pharmacology. She always remembered Mitesh,
and say when she met him again,
00:04:06
when they both coincidentally
enrolled at De Montfort University in Leicester,
that was an incredible moment
00:04:12
for her because this
is a man she'd thought about often since that time. And very quickly,
that reconciliation
00:04:20
became a relationship. NARRATOR: In 2006,
Mitesh and Jessica opted to study for their
master's qualifications
00:04:28
in Manchester. While living in the same city,
charting the same career path, Mitesh became the center
of Jessica's world.
00:04:37
While she's there,
her mother died. And Mitesh then took on
the role of providing
00:04:41
a shoulder to cry on. He was there for Jessica. He was the perfect man at the
worst time in Jessica's life,
00:04:49
and Jessica fell head over
heels in love with him. For two years, they
pursued a relationship.
00:04:56
And it was a
relationship in secret because in the Hindu
community, these sort of things
00:05:01
have to be out in the open. You need your
parents' permission. So it was a secret relationship,
until two years later, Mitesh
00:05:08
approached Jessica's
father and not only announced a
relationship, but asked for permission to marry her.
00:05:14
Jessica's father said no, and
it may have been something of a surprise to Mitesh.
00:05:20
NARRATOR: If there
was to be a wedding, this was not the
smoothest start. NAZIR AFZAL: Not just
in Hindu relationships,
00:05:26
but in particularly South
Asian relationships, it's almost a
requirement that you
00:05:30
get the confirmation
from a parent that this marriage
is blessed by them. If, as in this case,
the parent has said,
00:05:42
I don't agree with this, you
are now doing something that is against community regulations
and rules, and that in itself
00:05:51
can be seen as being shameful. I can imagine people within
the community talking about it.
00:05:59
NARRATOR: Jessica dug her heels
in, determined to marry Mitesh. As a solicitor who prosecutes
cases of honor-based violence,
00:06:06
Nazir Afzal understands better
than most the implications. If Jess is still going
ahead despite the fact
00:06:13
that there's been a
refusal by a parent, it does suggest that
she was in love, or she was determined to make
the best of the relationship
00:06:22
that she had with Patel. You don't do it unless
you are absolutely certain that you will be right.
00:06:29
NARRATOR: Eventually, with her
father's reluctant blessing, Jessica and Mitesh were married.
00:06:34
It was the summer of 2009. Almost immediately, the
man who had showered her with love and gifts,
who had comforted her
00:06:42
when her mother
was dying, appeared a completely different person. Their marriage, it seems from
the start, was not a happy one.
00:06:51
Mitesh was not the man he
had presented himself to be. Patel was an incredibly
controlling person.
00:06:58
He had secrets to keep. But also, he was somebody who
had been brought up in a kind
00:07:04
of fundamentalist culture. And those kind of
belief systems tend to give the control and power to
the male head of the household.
00:07:16
NARRATOR: In 2010, just a
year into their marriage, a family tragedy showed
Jessica just how little control
00:07:22
and independence that she
had over her own life. He limits the amount
of time that she's
00:07:27
allowed to spend with her
grandfather when he's dying. And then when he
does eventually die,
00:07:31
he doesn't let her go and
spend time with her family. So that's very
emotionally controlling
00:07:37
and deeply upsetting, but it
also says that he has power. The whole concept is control.
00:07:44
The idea that she has
to ask permission, the idea that she cannot
even see her own grandparent
00:07:51
who's dying without permission. It's all part of the
buttons you have to press. So you press this button to make
sure that she behaves herself,
00:08:00
that she only does
what you ask her to do, or she does so
with your consent. He died in her absence.
00:08:06
She never got a
chance to see him. When she complained about
that, she was beaten.
00:08:10
It's one of the
very few occasions that we know precisely of
the nature of the beating
00:08:15
because it occurred
in a car, and it was severe enough that Jessica
told her best friend about it.
00:08:20
We have this incredibly
articulate, bright, successful, determined woman who is
still able to be manipulated
00:08:29
and controlled by her husband. NARRATOR: The red
flags were there in 2010 that the
Patel's marriage
00:08:37
was going to be an unhappy one. What was keeping Jessica
in the relationship? The idea that she could
make her own choices
00:08:48
was completely anathema to the
community that she was part of. And all of that
playing on her mind
00:08:55
would have made it exceptionally
difficult for her to step out of that door, and
seek help and support,
00:09:00
and say, no, I don't want
to be part of this anymore. NARRATOR: Married
life had not turned
00:09:05
out the way Jessica had hoped. And Mrs. Patel was
about to make even more disturbing discoveries.
00:09:11
During the course
of their marriage, it became obvious to
Jessica that Patel was gay.
00:09:19
There came a point
where he was constantly on Grindr, the gay dating app,
setting up various meetings
00:09:29
with various men. NARRATOR: There
was much going on and not going on in the marriage
of Jessica to Mitesh Patel.
00:10:02
Jessica Patel's husband of just
a year was meeting men for sex. Mitesh made less and less
effort to hide his private life
00:10:12
from his employees. SCOTT SUMNERS: I suspected
he was gay about nine months into working with him.
00:10:17
I could just see him on the
apps, on the gay dating apps. He'd leave his
phone on the side.
00:10:21
It wasn't as if he
was trying to hide. I don't know if he
wanted people to know.
00:10:25
I don't even think,
as time went on, he even tried to
hide that from her. He was-- openly
to her, at least--
00:10:34
meeting other men and bringing
them back to the house and going into the
bedroom with them.
00:10:40
He's taking his
lover back to his home. The point is it's
also his wife's home, his loyal wife's home.
00:10:45
It's a complete disregard and
a complete disrespect to her. It's a message which is,
I don't care how you feel.
00:10:52
I don't care about the
impact of my relationship with this man on your feelings.
00:10:56
You don't matter. She was in a
position where it would have been quite
difficult for her to tell
00:11:03
other people about that. It's something very difficult
to face that your partner may
00:11:08
have married you for
the wrong reasons, perhaps you're not loved. Maybe that's embarrassing
at some level.
00:11:16
Maybe it's shameful
at some level. And maybe-- and
this is very often a factor in coercive control--
she's actually frightened
00:11:23
of him too. NARRATOR: Jessica can
have been in little doubt about her husband's
inclinations.
00:11:30
Perhaps she also realized
that he had married her not because he loved her,
but because she served
00:11:35
an important purpose for him. He was a homosexual man
in the Hindu community. And he was not willing to
be an open homosexual man
00:11:45
in the Hindu community. It was expected that
he would find a wife. Homosexuality is frowned upon.
00:11:51
It's often hidden. Very rarely will you come
out and talk to your parents or even a family member that
you're concerned about the fact
00:12:00
that you might be
gay, or you are pursuing a gay relationship. EMMA KENNY: Jessica's the
perfect cover because firstly,
00:12:06
she's traditional. She's not going anywhere. She's going to stay
married to him.
00:12:09
She's going to put up
with his indiscretions. NARRATOR: In 2011,
Mitesh met a man
00:12:14
who became more to him than just
a hookup or a one-night stand. Mitesh meets Dr. Amit Patel.
00:12:20
He's another medical
professional, so they move in
the same circles. TONY KENT: Amit quickly
became Mitesh's best friend.
00:12:27
It's quite clear
that they embarked upon a homosexual
relationship quite quickly.
00:12:32
And it's also clear,
from what Mitesh has said subsequently, that he
regarded Amit as his soulmate.
00:12:38
Best friends, soulmates, and,
it seems to a certain extent, roommates, because quite
blatantly by this point,
00:12:45
Mitesh was arranging
for Amit to come and stay in the family home. Amit would sleep
in the spare room.
00:12:51
Mitesh would sleep with
Jessica in the marital bedroom. Halfway through each evening,
he would leave that bed,
00:12:57
he would make his way
to the spare room, and he would spend the rest
of the night with Amit.
00:13:01
Now, this is under
the guise of friendship. But Jessica's very intelligent. She knows exactly what this is.
00:13:08
NARRATOR: It was a turning
point in the marriage of Mitesh and Jessica Patel. For the moment, I
suspect that he brought
00:13:17
his gay lover into the house. He was now on a trajectory
which would ultimately lead to Jessica's murder.
00:13:25
He could think of no other
way in which he would be able to carry on
with his life, the life
00:13:32
that he had now
created for himself, rather than the life that
he was, quote unquote,
00:13:37
"burdened with,"
the relationship that he had with Jess. The situation must have
been unbearable for Jessica,
00:13:42
and so she must
have been extremely happy when Amit emigrated to
Australia, emigrated to Sydney.
00:13:48
But unfortunately,
it didn't stop there. What followed were countless,
constant, lurid phone calls
00:13:56
between Amit and Mitesh, and
on top of that, text messaging, messaging back and forth, with
no attempt to hide his phone,
00:14:03
with no attempt to
demonstrate to her-- to hide the contents. And in fact, Jessica's
sister, on one occasion,
00:14:10
picked up the telephone
and scrolled through, seeing all of these messages. NARRATOR: Jessica
admitted to her sister
00:14:17
that her husband was
cheating on her with a man, that he was almost
certainly gay.
00:14:22
This causes a family
meeting of both families where they discuss the situation. It was an intervention
that was hampered enormously
00:14:29
by the customs and
traditions of their culture, because they would
not raise the subjects
00:14:35
of Mitesh's homosexuality. It was just taboo. It couldn't be spoken about. I would imagine that
Jess was being played here.
00:14:43
She really had no choice. There is no doubt in
my mind that if she had the opportunity,
she'd have left,
00:14:48
but he was totally
in control now. And the fact that the
other person was there would have made it
extremely difficult for her
00:14:53
in those circumstances. NARRATOR: For Jessica,
the consequences of challenging her husband's
behavior were extreme.
00:15:01
NEIL LANCASTER: In 2013, 2014,
they moved to Middlesbrough. Now, the family believe
this was a deliberate
00:15:07
effort to isolate Jessica
from the rest of her family. JANE MONCTON SMITH:
What he wanted went.
00:15:13
He was the rule-maker. He put Jessica, at least at
first, in with his family, moved her away from her family.
00:15:24
And then, he moved her away
from her support systems. He needed to control what was
known about his private life.
00:15:32
NARRATOR: Although
Middlesbrough, in the Northeast of England, was just 66 miles
from her hometown of Leeds,
00:15:37
once the couple moved, Jessica
found herself alone, lonely. SCOTT SUMNERS: She
was always up here.
00:15:43
She very, very
rarely got to go back down there to see her parents. Her dad used to come up
now and again to the shop
00:15:49
and visit her, but
it was an hour. And that was it. And she never really had
many friends up here.
00:15:54
NARRATOR: Scott Sumners came
to know Jessica and Mitesh well when they became his employers.
00:15:59
I worked at Roman
Road Pharmacy, and that's how I first met Jess. Because she purchased
the shop of my brother,
00:16:06
who previously set
it up and owned it. They open and
start to build up a very popular and successful
pharmacy in Roman Road.
00:16:15
Now, they work hard
at this business, and it's doing
really, really well. NARRATOR: Those who saw the
couple, however, spotted
00:16:22
how Mitesh would treat Jessica. He always used to
speak down to her. It was just-- instead of just
giving the poor lass a break
00:16:28
and letting her
get on with work, he was always putting her down. He never said
anything nice to her.
00:16:33
He was always negative. I don't think he had
much respect for Jessica. I don't think he loved her.
00:16:39
I think she was achieving
something for him, making him look
respectable, making
00:16:47
it look as if he didn't have
a private life of the nature that he did. He didn't speak to her
as if he respected her.
00:16:56
He was quite nasty and abusive,
even in front of people, so what he was like in
private is anybody's guess.
00:17:04
She never used to
say anything back. She'd never argue back with him. She just sort of just put
her head down and crack on.
00:17:09
She wanted to remain there
because she wanted a baby. NARRATOR: On occasions,
Mitesh would ensure
00:17:15
that he was alone
in the pharmacy, and it was not to focus on work. I worked till 10:00,
one of the nights,
00:17:20
he said we could go home,
get yourself off home early. So I went and got
myself some food.
00:17:24
I seen him go back in the shop. The shutters were
down in the front. And then I see him
go in with a guy.
00:17:29
I said what's going on here? I have a look on the cameras the
next morning, and I'd seen him.
00:17:33
And you could see in the shop
that he was with another guy, kissing a fella and stuff.
00:17:38
NARRATOR: Caught out
by the CCTV system that Mitesh himself
had installed. He was like
obsessed with CCTV.
00:17:45
He got it in the shop. He was wanting to let you know. He would say, right, I can
watch us all on the camera.
00:17:51
And he was showing
us all on his phone. I can watch what you're
doing from home, basically.
00:17:55
And he would say,
look, I can see my home and he showed us his house. And he went and bought
a top-of-the-range CCTV,
00:18:02
best clarity you can get. NARRATOR: It was around
this time in 2017 that Jess began showing signs
that she was being physically
00:18:08
abused by her husband. We know he was being
increasingly violent to Jessica during this time.
00:18:14
She's described having
phones thrown at her head. She's described him placing
his hands around her throat
00:18:20
and strangling. One time, she
had come in and she had like bruises on her face. And she said what she--
and it was quite bad.
00:18:28
And I was like-- and even the
rest of staff, we were shocked. And we were like--
00:18:31
I said, are you OK, Jess? And she went, oh, yeah,
I'm fine, I'm fine. I fell, and the phone,
it landed on my face.
00:18:37
She's described all
manner of violence in the course of this later
part of the relationship.
00:18:41
It was becoming almost as if
it was a daily occurrence. She come into work, and
she sat down, and she winced.
00:18:47
And I said, are you all right? And she said, Patel threw the
remote control at me last night
00:18:53
when I was watching TV. She said, it hit me. It's went and made a bruise. And I was like, ugh,
that's not good.
00:19:00
I said, what was that over? Oh, it's nothing, really. It left a bruise on the
side just below her ribs.
00:19:06
NARRATOR: The more Mitesh
indulged his gay friendships, the more violent he seemed
to become towards his wife.
00:19:13
He was trapped
in a relationship and he probably blamed her for
all of the ills in his life.
00:19:22
She would have been a
focus for everything, so he probably was
absolutely horrible to her.
00:19:30
I think he was expressing his
dissatisfaction with his life, and she was getting the blame.
00:19:37
We can't get our heads
around it ourselves why she just never left him. Because, really,
when we looked, there
00:19:44
was no positives
to stay with him, apart from the side
when she wanted to have children, really.
00:19:50
NARRATOR: The reason may
have been Jessica's desire to start a family. If she was really keen,
as the evidence suggests,
00:19:57
in becoming a mother, then this
is the partner that she chose. This is the person that she
wanted to make her life with.
00:20:06
So I can see why she would want
to remain under the same roof. Patel got married
to create an illusion.
00:20:16
If he got divorced,
he's going to break that illusion straight away. Jessica got married because
she's a traditional girl.
00:20:26
She wanted to be married. She wants a family. NARRATOR: Trying
for a child in what
00:20:30
was a disconnected
relationship brought only disappointment for Jess. They struggled to
have a child together,
00:20:37
so they get referred to the IVF. I used to feel sorry for
her because it was quite clear
00:20:41
that she just wanted
to have her own kids and have her own family. Well, they were obviously
struggling with the IVF
00:20:46
and stuff like that. NARRATOR: Only later
would it be revealed that Mitesh never
really intended
00:20:51
to have a baby with Jessica. What he actually does is takes
medication to lower his sperm
00:20:57
count, so he actively
sabotages the very thing that they are going to try
to create, which is a family.
00:21:05
It was all a ploy. It was all a tactic in
order to continue the fact that he kept controlling her.
00:21:11
I mean, given his later actions,
there's no doubt that he didn't intend to go through with this.
00:21:17
NARRATOR: But he does
appear to have considered Jessica may have her uses. I think during
this IVF process,
00:21:23
he starts to see the
possibilities of family because that's something
he wants as well.
00:21:30
He just doesn't want
it with Jessica. He was still in touch
with his soulmate in Sydney,
00:21:36
and he was explaining via
text message, via phone call-- we've seen the text
messages-- that he still
00:21:42
wanted them to be
together, but that he also wanted to have a family. In March 2018, Jessica
has a further cycle of IVF.
00:21:51
Now, if this is successful,
and they have three embryos to store, we have to
ask the question now,
00:21:57
does Patel need her anymore? It's within his
grasp that this life he wanted as a gay man but
with a family, it's there.
00:22:09
The only thing standing
in the way is Jessica. So it's quite possible
that at this point,
00:22:18
he starts to think about
how he can get rid of her. Divorcing her, probably
not an option because he
00:22:28
loses the embryos. He loses that part
of the fantasy that he has a family
with his male partner.
00:22:38
So Jessica has to be permanent
they got rid of, annihilated. NARRATOR: Spring 2018,
Mitesh Patel has eggs
00:22:50
from his wife stored as
part of the IVF process, and a male lover. It gives him only a
small window of opportunity
00:22:59
to decide whether he's going to
spend his life with his lover, or whether he's going to
get caught in a trap where
00:23:04
he has a child with Jessica. So to some degree, it's the
IVF that seals her fate.
00:23:10
He has to act now. NARRATOR: There
was another element in the timing of events. Mitesh had the lover, the
eggs post the IVF process,
00:23:19
and a chance to be rich. Unbeknown to Jessica,
Mitesh has actually taken out a life insurance
policy with two million pounds
00:23:27
on her. So not only do we
know that he has to make a decision because she's
going to have a baby otherwise,
00:23:33
we know that he's insured her
for a huge amount of money, so that should she
die or disappear,
00:23:39
he's about to become
incredibly wealthy, and that's going to
fund his new life with his lover in Australia.
00:23:46
So from the point that he's
got the insurance policy, it seems that Mitesh has decided
he is going to kill Jessica.
00:23:53
NARRATOR: A few days later,
Mitesh searched on the internet for properties for
sale in Sydney,
00:23:58
where Amit had moved after his
own marriage had broken down. Piece by piece, Mitesh
was laying the groundwork
00:24:06
for what he was about to do. In the week that led
up to Jessica's murder, he made a few more steps
which he may have thought
00:24:17
were intelligent. He spoke to one
of the neighbors, and he mentioned
Jessica's gullibility.
00:24:25
She's so gullible. She's so naive. Someday, she's going
to walk into a murder. Somebody will murder her.
00:24:31
Someone will take advantage
of this gullibility and murder her. It's a strange thing to say.
00:24:59
The day Mitesh came in, it
was the 14th of May, 2018. It was a Monday. We were really busy at the time.
00:25:09
I can't remember
exactly the time, but I think it was
around 7:00 and 8:00. NARRATOR: This piece
of CCTV footage
00:25:17
would soon become crucial to
exposing the brutal reality of the end of a marriage.
00:25:22
The timeline of events had
begun an hour or so earlier in the Roman Road Pharmacy.
00:25:27
As Jessica Patel prepared to
leave the shop for the night, she lingered, chatting
with her colleagues.
00:25:32
SCOTT SUMNERS: She was
talking about treating herself to a new car because
she just had a little Fiesta.
00:25:35
But the phone rang about half
6:00, and it was Patel saying, has Jessica set off home yet?
00:25:41
And I was like, oh, no,
she's here still talking. He said, well, will you
tell her to hurry up?
00:25:45
You know, I've texted her phone. Will you tell her to hurry up? I need her to bring
me some stuff home.
00:25:49
And so when I put
the phone down, I said, look, Jess,
you know exactly-- he's going mad because
you're still here.
00:25:55
She went, ah, OK. And she left about half of
6:00, quarter to 7:00, maybe. So that was the last
time we've seen Jess.
00:26:02
Terrible. NARRATOR: An hour later,
Mitesh made a visit to his favorite takeaway.
00:26:08
FOUAD JAWAD: Mitesh
is a regular here. It's every two days,
three days, he come and eat his pizza from my shop.
00:26:14
He like my food. So all the time, he
come and order it. Sometimes vegetarian,
sometimes cheese garlic bread.
00:26:22
AMIR ABD: He worked
a few doors away, so we were kind of like his
go-to place when you're hungry.
00:26:29
We open in the evening. It's just nice and
easy, isn't it? Pizza whenever you need.
00:26:33
It was a nice day. It was light outside. He came between 7:00 and 8:00. It was still bright
at that time.
00:26:42
He ordered his food, which was
a 10-inch vegetarian special. And then, he stayed
for a couple of minutes
00:26:49
and he said he would be back. He was just going
back to the pharmacy. NARRATOR: Standard behavior
from the shop regular.
00:26:56
Sometimes stay, sometimes go. But all the time, like,
when he orders his pizza--
00:27:02
because I'm busy
when he comes in. You see he orders his pizza,
and he pays for it, and he goes.
00:27:07
He said, I'm going
to the pharmacy and I'll come back after 10. How long when the pizza finish?
00:27:11
I say, like 10, 15 minutes. He come back for it. He take it to-go. He went in the back.
00:27:17
He was rustling around about. He didn't even take no
notice of what he was doing.
00:27:20
He said he just nipped
out and get a pizza and he popped in to get
something from the shop.
00:27:25
You could tell he
was a bit twitchy. I actually said to the
pharmacist, that was weird,
00:27:32
wasn't it?
Don't you think? They go, yeah, he was
acting a bit weird. And he was in the back storage
room for about half an hour.
00:27:40
AMIR ABD: He came
back roughly about 20 minutes, maybe half an hour. His behavior
seemed-- definitely,
00:27:45
he was pacing around. He looked-- when
I look back now, he seemed a little nervous and
kind of unsettled in himself.
00:27:55
When I pulled my hand
out to shake his hand, he was quite hesitant, you
know, to take his hand out.
00:28:01
I didn't really
think much of it. So, obviously, I understand
the reasons behind it now.
00:28:10
You know, the same when you have
blood on your hands, you know, you can't wash it off.
00:28:15
NARRATOR: At 8:18 PM,
Mitesh Patel arrived home. Moments later, he made a
frantic telephone call.
00:28:24
Patel returns
from the take-away, allegedly to find the burglary. He then dials 999,
says to the police
00:28:32
that his house has been burgled
and his wife has been killed. NARRATOR: When the
emergency services arrived,
00:29:24
they found Jessica dead. The four-bedroom home
had been ransacked. Crime scene officers found
Jessica's phone on the ground
00:29:33
outside the front door,
apparently dropped by the attacker as he fled. A post-mortem would
find Jessica had
00:29:40
been strangled and suffocated
with a plastic shopping bag. This is clearly
now a murder inquiry,
00:29:47
and a full investigation
is undertaken. This would involve all the
normal strands of inquiry
00:29:52
around telephones, and
around CCTV, and the like. NARRATOR: But Mitesh's
passion for security cameras
00:30:00
apparently had not helped. CCTV at the house
was disconnected, or so Mitesh told them.
00:30:09
Officers visited the
pharmacy that Mitesh had left just a couple of hours before.
00:30:13
SCOTT SUMNERS: The police
come in as we were going to lock up about 10 to 10:00.
00:30:18
And they said, we
need you to stay. And they were taking
swabs of everything. And they had all
the people and--
00:30:22
obviously, you see them in
the white uniforms and stuff when it's basically
something bad has happened.
00:30:26
But we was-- They said to us we
can't leave because we had the keys to the shop.
00:30:32
NARRATOR: When he
realized Jessica was dead, Scott felt sure that her husband
had something to do with it.
00:30:37
I was actually saying to
the police, he's done this. And they were saying,
why do you think that?
00:30:42
And I was saying, I
just know for a fact that he's done this because
this doesn't add up.
00:30:46
NARRATOR: Officers make
their next inquiries at the pizza take-away. FOUAD JAWAD: The police come
in the shop around 10:00,
00:30:53
something like that,
in May 14, 2018. NARRATOR: Chef Amir got an
inkling that they suspected
00:31:01
the quietly spoken pharmacist. AMIR ABD: I was in the shop
when the police came in
00:31:05
and kind of flooded
Romano's when they came in. There was maybe seven,
eight police officers.
00:31:13
And so we knew something
serious was going on, but we had no clue. They'd ask to see the CCTV
regarding the matter, trying
00:31:23
to give them an idea that it
was to do with a customer that came in, Mitesh. And they just want
to see the time
00:31:30
of how long he was in
for, and when he was here and when he wasn't here. NARRATOR: Next
visit for detectives
00:31:35
was the couple's home in
nearby affluent Linthorpe, rigged up with
surveillance cameras,
00:31:41
but Mitesh had got there first. What he did next was
to take the CCTV down. He tried to destroy it.
00:31:47
He took the hard-drive
out, and then went and hid it upstairs underneath a suitcase.
00:31:51
NARRATOR: Oblivious to the
growing case against him, Mitesh put on a show for
his staff at the pharmacy.
00:31:56
He came back into the shop
the day after she'd been killed. He got me in the consultation
room and he said--
00:32:07
and he give me a cuddle
and it was like-- I mean, I'm no body
language expert, but it was just
such a false cry.
00:32:14
And he said, oh, this
must have all happened while-- this all happened while
I was at the shop to visit you.
00:32:19
And we were just like, you just
sort of knew yourself, he was just, like, trying to
get it in our heads,
00:32:25
create himself an
alibi, trying to make us believe what he was saying. NARRATOR: The following day,
Mitesh didn't show up for work.
00:32:31
SCOTT SUMNERS: He went and
stayed with his family anyway. And that's when we've
seen in the paper
00:32:34
about a week later that
they arrested him, well, arrested a 36-year-old. NARRATOR: On the
17th of May, 2018,
00:32:43
three days after Jessica
Patel was murdered, her husband Mitesh was arrested. Now, during his time
in the police station,
00:32:50
he was interviewed. He denied the
offense completely. He claimed that their
relationship was good.
00:32:55
NARRATOR: As a weepy
Mitesh Patel stuck to his tale of a burglary gone
wrong, police were digging,
00:33:01
and what they found
was incriminating. There was DNA underneath
Jessica's fingers,
00:33:07
and there were very clear
scratch marks on his neck. Now, Mitesh tried
to explain this
00:33:12
away by saying he'd
suffered them at the gym, but Mitesh had a
personal trainer who said
00:33:16
he'd done nothing of the sort. NARRATOR: The
evidence seemed clear. Mitesh Patel had killed his
wife, but he was denying it.
00:33:24
Would his story that she
had been killed in a failed burglary convince a jury? The cell phone, when he
was staging the burglary,
00:33:41
would have recorded
all of that movement. The phone would have
recorded the steps.
00:33:46
It can determine the difference
between walking and running. So the more vigorous
the activity, the phone
00:33:51
would have thought
that was running. So his phone, the evidence
recovered from his phone would
00:33:55
have shown that there was a
period of vigorous activity that was recorded, and,
again, times, dates
00:34:03
would have all been
recovered from the phone. NARRATOR: At Teesside
Crown Court that November,
00:34:19
the prosecution laid out for
the jury a completely different version of events than
the one that Mitesh Patel
00:34:25
was claiming in his 999 call-- --beginning with the moment that
Jessica arrived home from work
00:34:34
on May 14. The day that
Jessica's murdered, we know that Mitesh is
waiting for her at home.
00:34:39
She's left the pharmacy. She's been shopping. And she obviously is going
home to an ordinary evening,
00:34:45
but little does she
know that he is there. She's gone indoors, but
almost immediately, Patel
00:34:52
has come up to her
and he's injected her with a fatal dose of insulin. You can see his
thinking, right?
00:34:58
I'm going to subdue her
with a drug that maybe gets out of the system quite quickly,
but gives me an opportunity
00:35:07
to kill her without a big
fight, or lots of screaming, or lots of neighbors
hearing what's going on,
00:35:15
until I want there to be
that kind of attention. After that, he used either
a Tesco's bag or a ligature
00:35:22
to attempt to strangle Jessica. That didn't work. And so he then resorted
to his bare hands.
00:35:29
But ultimately, Jessica
was killed that day by strangulation, having
been already dosed
00:35:34
with an overdose of insulin. I don't think she would have
stood a chance even if it was
00:35:38
against even somebody who
was smaller than Patel because, literally, she was like
a child's frame, body frame.
00:35:45
Following Jessica's
death, Mitesh decided that the way to cover
this up would be
00:35:50
to fake some form of break-in. He ransacked their home. He made it look, for all
intents and purposes,
00:35:58
like she had walked in and she
had walked in upon a burglar. He binds her arms and
legs with duct tape.
00:36:06
Duct tape that could be
traced back to his pharmacy, that could only come from him.
00:36:20
He then leaves
the house and goes to the nearby pizza takeaway. This is in order to give himself
an alibi to put himself out
00:36:26
of the house to
allow the opportunity for this staged burglary
to have happened.
00:36:31
He used Romano's as an
alibi from the time period he'd ordered his
food, left and gone
00:36:40
home, and killed Jessica,
and then come back and picked up his food. In order to add
credence to his alibi,
00:36:47
he sends a text
message to Jessica in order to make it seem
that he was out of the house.
00:37:02
NARRATOR: At trial,
prosecutors presented evidence that this was a crime
five years in the planning.
00:37:07
There are Google searches
now recorded from his computer. One of them is "how
do I kill my wife."
00:37:14
Another is "is it painful to
die from an insulin overdose." This wasn't a man who killed
his wife in a rage of passion.
00:37:22
This wasn't a man
who suddenly found out something catastrophic
about this relationship.
00:37:26
This was a guy who
had coolly and calmly and, for a considerable
amount of time,
00:37:31
planned how to end his wife. He wanted the perfect solution
for a very awkward problem,
00:37:37
which was Jessica. NARRATOR: Prosecutors
told the court that Mitesh wanted to keep
for himself and his lover
00:37:43
the three eggs that
Jess had produced, now frozen in a storage facility
in the Northeast of England.
00:37:50
I think that the murder was
the only logical course of action because of the embryos.
00:37:58
If Jessica lived, she could
have stopped him having the embryos to make a family.
00:38:06
He was very, very
focused on getting out of the country with his lover to
start a family somewhere else.
00:38:14
NARRATOR: If this was his plan,
it was hardly a realistic one. The biggest flaw in
Mitesh Patel's thinking
00:38:20
was yet to be exposed, and it
came from his phone, a device that was never far from
his hand as he used it
00:38:26
to meet men online,
monitor CCTV, and to track his
exercise regimes. Phil Ridley is a
forensic investigator
00:38:35
who specializes in
examining digital devices and analyzing uses of apps,
like the Apple Health app.
00:38:42
The Apple Health app
comes installed as default on most modern iPhones. It's been around since 2014.
00:38:50
The whole purpose of the app
is to record, as the name suggests, health information.
00:38:56
And the way it does that
is recording movements of the device that
it's installed on,
00:39:02
whether that be steps that
you've taken during the course of the day, whether it's
changes in elevation,
00:39:09
so how many flights of
stairs you've walked up. NARRATOR: Mitesh and
Jessica Patel's phones
00:39:14
will offer a mine
of revealing data. As part of setting the
scene of this burglary,
00:39:19
Patel takes Jessica's
phone and takes it outside and puts it on the doorstep. The Health app, in
this particular instance,
00:39:27
would have shown that there
was a period of normal activity when the victim was still alive.
00:39:34
It would have shown the
period of the 14 steps when the phone was
taken and discarded.
00:39:40
The police would have been
able to show from evidence, from both of the devices,
from the Health app evidence
00:39:46
that there would have been two
periods of overlapping motion. They would have been
effectively identical
00:39:52
because it was the same
individual that was carrying both devices, so
they would have been
00:39:56
able to prove that there were-- both devices were
effectively moving together during that period.
00:40:04
This phone took
14 steps outside after its owner was
dead, and his own phone, which also traces
steps, had taken
00:40:15
however many other steps
all throughout the time of her death. There was frantic activity
on the phone's movement
00:40:22
around the house
at the exact time that he was ransacking the
house to feign a burglary.
00:40:29
If it were not for the tragic
death of Jessica Patel, this would be a
comedy of errors.
00:40:35
When I was given
my evidence and stuff and I seen him in the
car, I was thinking why--
00:40:41
it was so obvious, all
the evidence against him. That's the type of person who
obviously wants to go and drag
00:40:46
her family through everything. But he was dragging his own
family through it all as well.
00:40:50
NARRATOR: There is no
evidence to suggest that Amit Patel knew
Mitesh was going to go through with his threats.
00:40:55
In court, Mitesh
told the jury how painful it was to live
as a gay Asian man in an unhappy marriage.
00:41:02
Patel tried to use his
sexuality during the trial to get favor with the jury. They saw through it.
00:41:08
They rejected his
claims entirely and unanimously found
him guilty after only three hours of deliberation.
00:41:14
On the 5th of
December 2018, Patel was sentenced to
life imprisonment with a minimum term of 30 years.
00:41:22
NARRATOR: The judge,
Mr. Justice Goss, dismissed Patel's
plea for sympathy. Whilst you can have some
sympathy and empathy for Mitesh
00:41:28
when it comes down to his
sexuality and his awkwardness around telling people
that he's actually gay,
00:41:35
that he's then
violent to his wife, that's got nothing
to do with his pain about being gay,
absolutely nothing.
00:41:41
You don't, as a gay
person, become violent because the world
isn't accepting you.
00:41:47
This was a despicable and
horrific crime committed by a man with ruthless
intent to obtain
00:41:53
two million pounds worth of life
insurance by killing his wife. NARRATOR: Patel will serve
a minimum of 30 years
00:42:00
in prison, a verdict which
was some comfort for those who cared for Jessica Patel.
00:42:05
I was checking-- I seen the sentence that
he has a minimum term. And I was glad
because especially--
00:42:13
it was like a relief off
your shoulders as well. And I was more thankful
what Jess' family
00:42:17
as well had got a bit of closure
on it and got a bit of justice.