'Kind, charitable and loved': Brother's anguish as sister murdered by husband at Oldbury home
Paramjit Kaur was described in court as a ‘charitable, hard working, kind woman who would help anyone who needed it’
That help extended to her husband of ten years Harminder Mattu, who she had suffered at the hands of before and who would ultimately kill her on the night of Monday March 30 at around 11pm at the house they shared in Swan Crescent, Oldbury
She had come to the UK from India over 10 years ago, initially staying with her cousin until she met, and eventually married Mattu.
But the relationship had been 'deeply unhappy', at least on her side, and just a month before she was found dead, she had applied for a divorce giving reasons of an irrevocable breakdown of the marriage.
During the trial, at Wolverhampton Crown Court, it was heard that the marriage ‘was blighted’ by Mattu’s heavy drinking which made him volatile and that she had been looking for a way out of it. There were no children in the marriage and no physical contact for a number of years.
In December 2024 she made a complaint to the police about a violent argument for which she didn’t press charges and recounted to them a previous incident the year before, where he placed his hand around her throat, with her struggling to breathe.
But despite previous incidents and reservations about the marriage, she took him back and put up with controlling behaviour, moods through his drinking and vocal outbursts.
Judge Jonathan Gosling, in sentencing Mattu to life imprisonment, said the alcohol could have been a factor on the night of the incident which led to the victim’s death.
Although Paramjit herself was found with alcohol in her system, but he was satisfied the only action she had taken on the night was to defend herself, not to attack her husband.
He said: “She was a compassionate woman who knew the marriage had run its course but was willing to take her husband back in to help with his issues and indeed took pity on him.
“This was a fatal error which eventually led to her death.”
Her brother Dilbar Singh said Paramjit was a ‘valued member of the family’, many of who still lived in India and had trouble coming to terms with the news of her death.
The statement read: “She was very hard-working, kind and charitable and would always give help to those who needed it.
“She loved her extended family and was very much a part of it, even from a distance, and when she died at first we had to keep it from family members who would be too upset, telling them she was ill.
“In India it is the custom to bury someone who has died on the same day if not the next one and with my sister we had to wait six months because of the investigation - I find it difficult to understand how someone would do this to my sister.”