Man tearfully called friend before stabbing mother at Wolverhampton hotel, jury hears

Alpesh Patel, who received the call from workmate Gurminder Singh, told Wolverhampton Crown Court: "He was speaking and crying at the same time and I could not hear him properly.

"He said the girl he loved was either already married or was going to marry somebody else. The crying made it difficult to tell which of these he said.

"But I am 100 per cent certain he also said 'I can't live without her.' I thought he might commit suicide and told him to think of his parents and family back home. I said please tell me where you are so I can come to you. Then the phone went down. I tried to get in touch with him by calling and texting about 10 times but he did not respond."

Mr Robert Price, prosecuting, commented: "He did not answer because he was engaged in a brutal attack on Amandeep Kaur Hothi."

Singh has admitted knifing the 29-year-old mother of two from Wolverhampton to death at the city's Britannia Hotel on March 5 but denies murder on the grounds that he was not in control of his actions.

But Mr Price maintained: "This was a loss of control for which there was no excuse . It was a loss of temper and the execution of a settled plan."

The victim had told Singh her name was Simran Sandhu and he had even the first of these tattooed on his arm during the one year relationship. They had originally through Facebook and he believed was unmarried, the court heard. Her husband knew nothing about her 'friendship.'

Singh cut his throat in a failed suicide bid after stabbing his girlfriend and could not speak because of the injury when charged with her murder.

But when told the name of the victim he scribbled the word 'shocked' above Amandeep Kaur Hothi and then wrote: 'But all the time her name was Simran Sandhu.'

Mr Patel, who worked with 29-year-old Singh at the Toor Supermarket in Green Lane, Forest Gate, London - where the defendant lived in a flat above the shop- said: "I knew that he had started communicating with a girl on Facebook about a year before March. He told me that her name was Simran and he was in love with her. He had that name tattooed on his left arm. I first saw it about six months before the incident."

Singh pressed his hands to his ears and was allowed to leave the court when the 999 call he made to the ambulance service around 9.45am on March 6 - after cutting his throat in the the hotel bedroom where Mrs Hothi already lay dead - was played to the jury.

Mr David Mason QC defending explained: "He left the dock in some distress. It was the first time he had heard that."

The case continues.