Jealous Milton Keynes husband beat his love rival to death, murder trial hears

Gnanachandran Balachandran is said to have recruited two others to help snatch the man he saw as a rival, Suren Sivananthan, while he was shopping at centre:mk.

The trio, which included a 17-year-old teenager, then held Suren captive for 12 hours while subjecting him to a series of sustained beatings in various locations around Milton Keynes.

They finally dumped the 32-year-old, bleeding from a serious head wound and stripped of his blood-stained clothing, near a pond outside the Co-op at Great Linford, the jury heard.

His body was discovered at 4am on January 21 this year.

Prosecutor John Price QC said Suren had 39 separate injuries to his head and neck. The top of his scalp was split open by a blunt force impact and his eye socket was badly damaged.

“The body showed obvious signs of numerous blunt force injuries, particularly to the head and face. Suren was severely beaten during a prolonged violent assault,” he said.

The jury at Luton Crown Court heard how Sri Lanka-born Suren had flown to the UK to visit Balachandran’s estranged wife Ragupathy Annalingham a couple of weeks previously.

The pair had known each other as children in Sri Lanka and were reunited through Facebook after mum-of-one Ragupathy decided to end her “unhappy” marriage.

Suren flew to the UK to meet the woman he had not seen for 18 years. But because the “traditional society” of Sri Lanka would not have approved, they kept their relationship secret.

Jealous Balachandran, 38, also from Sri Lanka, told her: “You can’t live with your husband and so you take someone else. You are a bad person”, the jury heard.

He and two other defendants Kiroraj Yogarajah, 30, and Prashanth Thevarasa, 24, are all from Milton Keynes. All three deny murder.

The fourth defendant cannot be named for legal reasons because he is only 17. He has pleaded not guilty to an alternative charge of causing gbh with intent.