London: An Indian-origin banker has been sentenced by a UK court to life imprisonment for strangling his wife to death in July last year.
Manas Kapoor, who worked as a product controller at Morgan Stanley, became addicted to gambling and feared he would be sacked after an accounting error cost the bank millions of pounds.
The 35-year-old killed his wife Shivani, also 35, in a fit of rage on the day he was due to face a disciplinary hearing.
The couple, originally from Delhi, had moved to the UK after their marriage. Shivani was working as a paediatric occupational therapist here.
"Manas Kapoor was under a great deal of pressure, both at work and home. He was a compulsive gambler who was heavily in debt. He admitted in police interview that he found it difficult to deal with stress and the jury have agreed with the prosecution account that he killed his wife, strangling her in a fit of rage when the many stresses came to a head," said detective inspector Simon Pickford of the Homicide and Major Crime Command at Scotland Yard.
"Our thoughts are with Shivani`s family and her 18-month-old child, who have lost a loving daughter and mother," he added.
Prosecutors told Wood Green Crown Court yesterday he tried to cover up the death at their home in Northwood, north-west London, by saying his wife fell off a stool.
A postmortem examination gave the cause of death as manual compression of the neck.
Further injuries were discovered on Shivani`s body during the postmortem examination, included bruising on her back, elbows and shoulders, consistent with being pinned against a wall or floor, deep bruising around her nose suggesting a hand had been put over her face, and her neck had been compressed so hard it had bruised her spine.
Kapoor was arrested at the scene but denied murder.
He was sentenced to life imprisonment and must serve a minimum term of 16 years in jail.
Kapoor admitted he was 8,000 pounds in debt and had been borrowing from friends and family to cover his losses, the court heard.
Shivani`s family has since been fighting for the custody of her daughter Vania from her paternal grandparents who wanted to move her to Glasgow.
