Obsessed man took 'brutal and fatal revenge', jury told
BBCAn "obsessed" former university student murdered his sex worker ex-girlfriend after she realised he had stolen money from her, a jury has heard.
The Old Bailey was told how 24-year-old Deepak Sandhu killed 39-year-old Xiaoqing Ke in a "ferocious" knife attack at her Air BnB flat in the Earls Court area of London.
Caroline Carberry KC said Sandhu, of Newlands Road, Southampton, and Ms Ke, who was from China, had got to know one another in early 2025 when she was working at a brothel.
Sandhu has pleaded not guilty to murder and perverting the course of justice.
The prosecutor outlined how the pair had "something of a relationship" and remained in contact when Ke moved from Southampton to London.
The court heard how the relationship broke down after Ke realised the former Southampton Solent student had been stealing from her.
He admitted taking £500 from her handbag and made "increasingly desperate attempts to repair the damage his dishonesty had caused to the relationship", Carberry said.
Sandhu, an Indian national, watched proceedings from the dock with the assistance of a Punjabi translator.
'Manipulative young man'
The prosecutor said he pestered Ke with calls and texts, eventually arranging to see her one evening in December 2025.
He had bought a set of knives from a supermarket in Southampton and was captured by a Ring doorbell arriving at her flat on Old Brompton Road dressed in a baseball cap and wearing face coverings, Carberry said.
The barrister told the jury by the time he left the flat, 90 minutes later, Ke was dead.
Carberry told the jury Sandhu "had become an obsessed, manipulative young man who could not accept her rejection of him and carried out a brutal and fatal revenge attack on her".
The alarm was raised the following morning when neighbours spotted bloodstains on her door and in a shared communal area of the flats, the jury heard.
Her body was found on her bedroom floor by two police officers.
The court was told Sandhu was seen with injuries to his arm following the killing and his blood was found at the scene.
Carberry said Sandhu then made an abortive attempt to leave the country and booked a one-way flight to Mumbai, changing the SIM card on his phone.
He was arrested on a coach heading for Birmingham airport.
The trial continues.
