'Honour killer' may die in prison

Grey-haired Bachan Athwal, known as "mummy dearest", will not be eligible for release until she is 90 years old, an Old Bailey judge ruled.

Bachan lured Heathrow Customs officer Surjit Athwal to India on the pretext of going to two family weddings after learning she was cheating on her son Sukhdave. Surjit, a 27-year-old mother to two young children, disappeared "off the surface of the Earth" after the trip in December 1998 and her body was never found.

Bachan boasted to family members that she had arranged for her daughter-in-law to be strangled and her corpse thrown into a river, and a "cunning, calculated plot" was hatched to cover up the crime.

Terrified that the controlling matriarch, a mother of six and grandmother of 16, may exact the same fate on them, none of the relatives came forward to police until years later to reveal their "dark family secret".

Meanwhile, Bachan and her son Sukhdave Athwal set about eliminating every trace of Surjit from their home life. Friends were told not to mention her name while her children were told she had gone away.

Stories were spread among the Sikh community in Hayes and Southall that she was "prone to going off with men" and was probably with a boyfriend in India.

Sukhdave, 43, was also jailed for life, with a minimum term of 27 years. The sentence was only greater than his mother's due to her advanced age. The pair, both of Willow Tree Lane, Hayes, west London, were found guilty of murder by an Old Bailey jury in July.

Judge Giles Forrester told them: "The pair of you decided that the so-called honour of your family members was worth more than the life of this young woman. You, Bachan, were head of that family. I have no doubt you exercised a controlling influence over other family members."

Bachan, who the court heard was known to her large family as "mama ji" or "mummy dearest", clasped her hands as if in prayer as she was told she would serve at least 20 years. Standing quietly with her head bowed, her behaviour was a far cry from that during the trial, when she theatrically denied having anything to do with Surjit's death, and cried "lies" as the verdicts were delivered.