Saju Chelavalel - live updates from court as killer is sentenced for triple Kettering murder
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Saju Chelavalel is due to be sentenced today (Monday) for murdering his wife and two children in Kettering.
The 52-year-old monster killed Anju Asok, Jeeva Saju and Janvi Saju at their flat in Petherton Court in December last year.
We will be at Northampton Crown Court and will provide live updates from the courtroom as he is sentenced.
Live updates from court as Saju Chelavalel is sentenced for Kettering triple murder
Key Events
- 52-year-old Chelavalel is facing a life sentence for murdering his wife and two children in December
- He killed KGH nurse Anju Asok, 35, son Jeeva Saju, six, and daughter Janvi Saju, four, at their Petherton Court flat
- Forensic post-mortem examinations found that all three died as a result of asphyxiation
That concludes our live coverage from Northampton Crown Court today. We’ll have reaction from police and Anju’s friends on our website later today.
BREAKING: Saju Chelavalel sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 40 years before he is eligibile to apply to the parole board to be considered for release.
Chelavalel is told that only a life sentence can be passed and that the offences justify a starting point of a minimum term of 30 years behind bars, but that there are a number of aggravating factors. He says there is little mitigation and addresses references to him being a man devoted to his family.
“A good family man does not kill his wife,” he says.
Mr Justice Pepperall will not be imposing a whole-life order.
Mr Justice Pepperall tells Chelavalel that his children would have been “terrified and deeply traumatised” by hearing the attack on their mother.
Mr Justice Pepperall says Chelavalel wanted police to investigate Anju’s alleged ‘infidelity’, in the belief that it may have justified his appalling crimes.
But he then tells the murderer: “Even if you had been right in your suspicion, let me make clear that nothing could possibly justify violence, let alone the brutal murder of your family.”
The defence says they believe a whole-life order is not appropriate in this case. Mr Carter-Stephenson says the killing of Anju was spontaneous and that Chelavalel’s alcohol-clouded thought process led him to believe that the children should go with him when he died by suicide.
The court hears Chelavalel remembers laying in bed with his children after his failed attempt to poison them but does not remember strangling them.
Mr Carter-Stephenson says he was ‘somewhat confused’, ‘befuddled by alcohol’ and was not acting rationally.