Bhupinder Dhesi

A husband was jailed for 11 years yesterday (Thursday) for plotting to kill his mother-in-law and committing fraud.

Bhupinder Dhesi, 36, of Lennox Road, Gravesend, believed his wife’s mother was behind his wife’s decision to leave the marital home with their two children.

Judge Carey, sitting at Maidstone Crown Court, sentenced him to five years and three months after he admitted soliciting to commit murder and eight months to run concurrent for perverting the course of justice.

In addition he was sentenced to three years and six months in relation to a mortgage fraud incident and two years and three months for two counts of false representation.

Speaking after sentence, Detective Chief Inspector Andrea Bishop, from the Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate, said: “Dhesi was cold and calculating and prepared to go to any length to get his wife and children back.

“It didn’t matter to him if that cost money or meant getting people to lie on his behalf. He is now behind bars for a long time where he will have time to reflect upon his actions.”

The court heard he employed the services of a private investigator in September 2011 to locate his family. He later asked him to find two witnesses who would attend court and provide false evidence in his forthcoming mortgage fraud trial to help support his innocence claim.

A month after first contacting the investigator, Dhesi asked him to help him get his children back and suggested his wife Sanjeet have some form of accident. Less than a week later, he re-contacted the investigator to say he did not want to harm his wife but his mother-in-law, Parminder Kaur Sandhu, instead who he wanted killed.

He was arrested at his home on October 13 2011, four days before he was due to stand trial at Maidstone Crown Court for the fraud offences.

He was charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice in relation to his attempts to obtain false witnesses in a criminal hearing in relation to the forthcoming fraud trial and soliciting to commit murder in relation to his mother-in-law.

Dhesi was remanded in custody and he later changed his plea to guilty in relation to the fraud charges.

At a hearing on January 23 at Maidstone Crown Court he pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice and not guilty to soliciting murder and a trial was set for March 12.

On March 2 Dhesi altered his plea to guilty to soliciting murder and was remanded in custody until April 12 for sentencing on all charges.