The Guardian Weekend | 13 February 2021 The Guardian Weekend | 13 February 2021 25 25Now she told them Singh was coming to talk, and Shoker and a respected older
Sikh were going to give him a lecture. She thought they would do this in the
lounge, and asked her housemates if they’d leave them to it; it might be tense.
Mahil drove to Brighton station to collect Sonny and Shoker, off a train from
London. But instead of Sonny , Shoker introduced her to another 19-year-old.
“This is Jason,” he said. In fact, it was Darren Peters , an old schoolfriend of
Shoker’s – a bike mechanic and a petty criminal with a record for car theft.
Surely this must have seemed a big change of plan? Peters would not be
giving Singh a lecture on Sikh morals. “ It just seemed like a normal uni thing,
where everyone brings their friends. When I look back, that’s another ‘what
if ’ moment. If I’d said, ‘Where’s Sonny, why’s he not here? This is dodgy.’ It
didn’t occur to me to question all these things till afterwards .”
But she did ask Shoker on the way back to the house. Sonny would be around
later, he said. She bought food for the two men and cooked supper, introducing
“Jason” to her housemates ; they already knew Shoker.
Meanwhile, Singh was on his way in his sister’s Mercedes; his BMW had
broken down. At 4pm, he had texted Mahil: “Can we talk civil or do you just
want me dead?” Phone records released in court show she texted a number of
times to say he shouldn’t come if he was anxious; they could chat another day.
She dread ed the encounter, Mahil says now, and hoped he would turn back.
Singh arrived at 11pm. “I answered the door and he came with a teddy bear,
and that threw me right off. I saw him how he used to be. He was friendly, and
it made me feel confused.” She had asked Shoker and Peters to wait in the
lounge so she could speak to Singh alone in her room. But when she walked in
to her room, the two men were still there ; before she could ask them to leave,
Peters had pushed Singh against the wall and punched him. “When he threw
the punch, I dropped the teddy bear. I ran out. I’d never seen anyone punched
before. I ran up the stairs to fi nd my housemates. I was hyperventilating,
shaking. Even when Gagan called my name, I didn’t know what to do.”
Why didn’t she go back downstairs with her friends to help Singh? (The
lounge and her bedroom were in the basement.) She shakes her head. She says
she was petrifi ed, and it is something she will never forgive herself for. Police
reports suggest the attack lasted 20 minutes: what was she doing during that
time? Mahil says this is inaccurate; the attack lasted around fi ve minutes.
“Two of my housemates were cuddling me, trying to calm me down .”
The last thing she heard before the men left the house was movement atthe basement back door, and Shoker saying he had hurt his hand , then a car
driving away. She and her friend Live checked the front door, back door and
basement room; they were gone. In her bedroom, her duvet was missing.
“I was trying to make sense of it all. Where were my bedsheets? I was
annoyed they’d not eaten the food. I said to my friend, ‘I’ve made them so
much food! Why didn’t they eat it?’” Her friends made her a cup of tea and
gave her a piece of the key lime pie she had bought for Peters and Shoker- a detail later picked up on by reporters. “They said I was eating pie while
waiting to have my victim killed. It couldn’t be further from the truth.” Why
didn’t she call the police? Again, she says she doesn’t know. She called Shoker
at 2.30am and he didn’t pick up. At 2.50am he called back. Mahil asked what
had happened : was Singh OK? He said everything was fi ne; they had taken
him to see Sonny. At 4am, Mahil went to sleep in Live’s room.
That morning , Singh’s sister Amandip called Mahil. She said her brother had
not returned home, and she had heard he was visiting her the night before. At
fi rst, Mahil told her she had not seen Singh; then she said he had come to the
door, but she had not let him in. Why? She says she panicked. How could she
tell Amandip the last time she saw her brother he was being punched? And
that she had not thought it worth calling his family or the police?
She r ang Singh, but there was no answer. She rang Shoker and told him
Amandip had called : was Singh OK? Shoker was evasive. Then she got a series
of texts from friends saying they had heard a rumour, from people working at
Singh’s TV channel, that he had killed himself. She was distraught. “I thought,
because I betrayed his trust and lied to him, he’d gone and killed himself.”
Soon after, she got a disturbing call from Shoker, who told her: “I’m ready to
go to jail for you for 21 years.” She was terrifi ed, and told Live. (In court, this
call was used against both Mahil and Shoker as proof that they had planned
to kill Singh. Although Live was a witness for the defence, and remains
a close friend of Mahil’s, the prosecution also made her their key witness. )
That afternoon, Live told her the BBC was reporting a body had been found
in a burned-out Mercedes in Blackheath, not far from where Shoker lived.
Mahil called her brother Harinder and told him what had happened; they
agreed she should call the police. She told an offi cer she had received texts
from friends suggesting Singh had killed himself and heard the reports of
REX/SHUTTERSTOCK; PA a car with a body in it – a car like the one Singh had been driving.→
Gagandip Singh (above) was burned
to death in a car boot, after being
brutally beaten by Harinder Shoker
(right) and Darren Peters (centre
right). Above and far right: the
tabloids’ take on Mahil’s marriage