The Electronic Telegraph 25 April 1995 HOME NEWS

Jail for sex slave who killed cruel employer

By Colin Randall

Essaki Gopal, 27, from a humble background in a village near Madras, had agreed to work without wages for Indu Bhagchandaney in the belief that he would receive enough money on his return to India to pay for his sisters' dowries.

But his duties went far beyond domestic chores at Mrs Bhagchandaney's home in Hendon, north-west London, said David Calvert-Smith, prosecuting.

Gopal, who arrived in Britain as a virgin, was required to massage his mistress night and morning, and to have sexual intercourse and oral sex with her.

He was given little food but was forced to work from early morning to late at night, sleep on the floor of an unheated room and endure regular humiliation from his employer and her son.

Contract stipulated he should work for three to five years before being paid

After a row in which he was assaulted by her, Gopal stabbed his employer and fractured her skull. He then cut off her head and sawed her body into 12 pieces which he placed in plastic bin liners and dumped at a refuse tip.

Waste treatment workers discovered an arm at the rubbish tip, and her head was found floating in a stream by a man walking his dog. Mrs Bhagchandaney had a conviction for a social security fraud, enabling police to identify her from fingerprints.

Gopal was jailed for four years and recommended for deportation after the court accepted his plea of not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter on grounds of provocation.

The Common Serjeant of London, Judge Neil Denison, said Gopal had been brought to Britain as a servant and treated for eight months after his arrival as a slave. He told him: "You were starved, physically assaulted and you were not paid. In addition you were used by your employer as an object of sexual gratification."

Gopal had made attempts to escape, the judge said. When he was assaulted again, his self-control snapped and he killed the woman who had treated him "in such a barbaric and humiliating manner".

Mr Calvert-Smith said he complained repeatedly of his treatment and workmen renovating Mrs Bhagchandaney's home felt sorry for him when he told them of his life and appealed to them to give him a job.

William Clegg, QC, defending, said Gopal was treated "worse than a dog". Visitors realised he was ill-treated, but had no idea of the scale of his suffering. "Many a man not used to subservience would have snapped a great deal earlier," said Mr Clegg. "But in India Gopal was used to subservience. He was an Untouchable."

His family home was a one-room thatched hut. A simple young man with no previous convictions, he was enjoying on remand in Brixton prison a level of luxury he had never before experienced: sleeping in a bed and eating regular meals.

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