Failed IT student guilty of revenge attack murder

A failed Indian IT student has been found guilty of murdering a woman he was "obsessed" with in a "sustained and ferocious" knife attack.

The Old Bailey heard 24-year-old Deepak Sandhu met 39-year-old Chinese national Ziaoqung Ke while she was working at a brothel in Southampton in early 2025.

They formed what prosecutors described as a "relationship of sorts", but it soured when Sandhu stole money from her.

Ke then moved to a rented AirBnB flat on London's Old Brompton Road, and it was there Sandu murdered her, using knives bought from a supermarket.

Prosecutor Caroline Carberry KC described the killing as having "all the hallmarks of a planned attack".

Sandhu, of Newlands Road in Southampton, told Ke he was an actor and model, and claimed he was attending an audition in the US.

In reality he had been thrown off his IT course at Southampton Solent University for poor attendance, his visa had been revoked, and he was working as a casual labourer on building sites.

The pair shared no common language, communicating using the Google Translate app, and detectives were able to chart their disintegrating relationship through their WhatsApp chats.

Carberry told the jury how he made "increasingly desperate attempts to repair the damage his dishonesty had caused to the relationship" telling her at one point that he could help her obtain British citizenship.

But he also told her former boss at the brothel of his anger and determination to take his revenge on her. "She will regret what she has done," he reportedly said.

Eventually, after bombarding her with messages, he sent her a video showing him with a pile of fake £20 banknotes promising to return the money he had stolen from her.

She allowed him to visit her on the evening of 9 December 2025.

He changed his appearance before he arrived at the Earls Court Airbnb, wrapping his face in a scarf and wearing a baseball cap.

His arrival and departure from the flat were all captured on its Ring doorbell camera.

In the hours after the killing Sandhu changed the SIM card in his phone and sent a voice message to his sister claiming that he had seen Ke murdered by "a professional" armed with a knife and a gun.

He then tried to leave the country, booking a flight to Mumbai.

But Ke's body had been discovered by police, who had been alerted by her neighbours, and he was arrested as he travelled on a National Express coach to Birmingham airport.

Sandhu nodded slightly as the jury of seven women and five men delivered its verdicts, after deliberating for two hours.

It found him guilty on a charge of perverting the course of justice, as well as murder.

Judge Philip Katz KC told Sandhu he would be sentenced on Friday.