Man who knifed mother and stepfather to death ordered to serve at least 36 years

A knife-obsessed killer who murdered his mother and stepfather in a frenzied attack has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 36 years.

Anmol Chana was convicted by jurors at Birmingham Crown Court on Thursday of killing Jasbir Kaur, 52, and her husband, Rupinder Singh Bassan, 51, at their home in Oldbury, West Midlands.

The 26-year-old’s trial was told he had shown previous “animosity” towards his mother, having sent a text expressing a desire “to knife her” before the killings in February this year.

After the murders, Chana stole money from the victims’ semi-detached house in Moat Road, and fled the scene in Mr Bassan’s yellow Toyota Aygo, before contacting a female escort, going to a pub and “calmly” playing pool.

Chana, of Hamilton Road, Smethwick, also plotted to flee the UK, booking a plane ticket to Italy via Turkey, and writing himself a reminder list including entries to “rob a Lidl” and “buy a new knife”.

Passing sentence on Friday, Judge Mark Wall QC told Chana that false claims he had made about both victims were evidence of a complete lack of remorse.

The judge told Chana, who inflicted more than 50 stab and slash wounds on his victims: “You claimed to the jury that you had killed them in self-defence. The truth was very different, as they decided.

“I am sure that the allegations you made at trial of your mother abusing you throughout your childhood were false and designed to garner jury sympathy for you.

“These are allegations born of pure fantasy. I do not increase your sentence because of the defence you chose to run at trial but it is the clearest example of your complete lack of remorse for what you have done.

“I also reject any suggestion that Mr Bassan and your mother started the incident or that they were in any way violent and threatening to you.”

Ruling that Chana, who had a machete and two other weapons stored at his home, had a longstanding fascination with knives, the judge added: “The effects of what you have done are devastating – two people have lost their lives.

“Your sister has lost the stable and supporting family that she obviously relied on.

“There are no mitigating features that I need to reflect in sentence, save that you are a relatively young man of 26.”

At the start of the trial, prosecution barrister Jason Pitter QC said both victims had been brutally murdered, suffering multiple stab wounds.

“The tragedy is they were killed by the defendant who they had, only that same Saturday, allowed to stay under this same roof,” Mr Pitter told the court.

Giving a victim impact statement from the witness box before sentence was passed, Mrs Kaur’s daughter, Kiran Chana, said she pitied her brother for what he had done.

She told the court: “I really don’t hate him. I do hate what he has done.”

Telling Judge Wall that Mr Bassan had treated her and her brother as if they were his own children, Ms Chana said of her mother and stepfather: “Not a day goes by when I don’t think about them or what they went through.”