Accused says she 'did not poison mum'

Lovestruck Kuntal Patel, 37, confessed that she fantasised about killing her magistrate mother Meena, after she "forbade" her to marry her boyfriend, Niraj Kakad.

Patel said she contacted an American poisons dealer on the "dark web" and talked about needing a "tasteless" and deadly toxin to get her mother "out of the way".

But Breaking Bad-obsessed Patel said the emails were a "fantasy" in which she imagined herself as character in the American TV series - in which teacher turned drug lord Walter White spikes a rival's drink with deadly ricin.

She told Southwark Crown Court: "It was like I saw myself to be some kind of Mexican drug warlord. I would think it through as if I was the main character in Breaking Bad.

"It was all a big mess. A complete and utter mess."

Patel admitted she emailed poisons dealer Jesse Korff in America to demand deadly toxins.

In one email sent last December, she told how something had "gone wrong" as the "target drank all" of the poison but was still alive.

But Patel insisted the emails were just a way of her coping with her abusive home life and depression - and she never poisoned her mother.

She said: "By this time, because of the messages I received from my mum and because I couldn't cope with it and I wanted to escape from it all, I started to fantasise about trying to kill myself or my mum.

"It was as if I was thinking through it as if I was in my own TV programme or a character in Breaking Bad.

"I was in a really strange place in my mind."

She said the person who wrote the emails "doesn't resemble me", adding: "I know how it appears, but the truth is I didn't do anything, it's all fabrication.

"It escalated and I had to go to work and pretend like everything was OK and I had to be at home and pretend everything was OK.

"But I was living this other life. This was my own way of coping - it was my coping mechanism. It was how I survived daily."

It is claimed Patel got deadly abrin sent to her hidden in a candle and slipped it to her mother in her diet coke.

When it did not work, she allegedly begged the poison dealer for another, stronger dose.

But Patel claims she freaked out when she saw the candle and threw it away.

Patel, denies trying to murder her mother, who sits on the bench at Thames Magistrates' Court, and acquiring a biological agent or toxin.

She has pleaded guilty to two counts of attempting to acquire a biological agent or toxin last December.

Patel wiped tears away from her eyes and told the jury: "I didn't do it, I didn't put anything in my mother's coke."

The former London Olympics volunteer said that when counter terrorism police raided her home in January she thought Jehovah's Witnesses were at her door.

But she was arrested and spent four days being questioned by officers at a police station.

She told the court: "I thought it was Jehovah's Witnesses but it was the police. They had a warrant to search the house.

"I was told to quickly grab some clothing and leave the house. That was the last time I saw my mum and my sister.

"It was like a really bad dream. It just wasn't the real me. It was like me coming back to my senses and reality.

"It was a huge reality check, it was me coming back into the real world, real life, having to account for my actions."

But she admitted lying to police because she was terrified they would discover her email exchanges with Korff.

Peter Rowlands, defending, reminded the court that Patel told her mother in a phonecall from Holloway Prison: "I was going to kill you and Ambama saw that, that's why she is punishing me."

In the call, Patel added: "I have done everything bad and dirty and goddess Ambama has seen what this girl is doing to her mum and so she has sent me here."

The Hindu goddess Ambama is said to punish bad acts.

But Patel said she did not mean her "confession" literally. She said: "I meant that Ambama the goddess saw that I had these kind of thoughts against my mother. Not that I literally had done anything, which I had not."

Under cross-examination, prosecutor Jonathan Polnay confronted Patel with the hate-filled emails she sent her friends, claiming they showed she was "growing to hate" her mother and "wanted her dead".

Patel replied: "There may have been instances where I did, but in the same breath I also had sympathy and I also did love her."

Mr Polnay said: "I suggest that you thought she was responsible, in part, for a roadblock to ruining what seemed to you at the time your one shot chance of getting married, having a family, moving out of Stratford and living happily ever after."

After a long pause, Patel quietly replied: "Yes."

The designer admitted she had looked at a "considerable number" of websites to "research killing and murder".

Jurors heard she Googled "how to murder someone without getting caught".

Mr Polnay said: "I'm going to suggest the reason you didn't want to go out in a blaze of glory and machine gun fire and you didn't want to get caught is because you wanted to be free to marry Niraj."

After a 20-second pause, Patel replied: "Maybe, at the time, yes."

Mr Polnay said: "You were not buying abrin for committing suicide, you wanted to buy it for murder."

But Patel replied: "That's not true."

Jurors heard Patel also allegedly googled how to find a hit man in Mumbai - where her mother had travelled for a court case.

And she admitted telling police "a pack of lies" by claiming she only got the poison for suicide and "everything is fine" with her mother.

She said: "I know I lied, I told many lies. The reason I lied was because I was frightened and scared.

"I didn't want the police to know what I had done in relation to the searches. I was terrified about what I had done in relation to the searches."

Mr Polnay said: "Through tears you lied to police. You said 'I never wanted to hurt my mum'."

He said she only admitted she had thought about murdering her mother with poison because she was "busted" by officers.

He said: "The police had the emails, you were busted. You had no choice but to admit."

And he accused Patel of lying in her latest claim that she was living in a Breaking Bad inspired fantasy world, but never tried to harm her mother.

Mr Polnay said Patel was "a liar but not a fantasist".

She said she asked Korff for an oral dose of abrin because the poison dealer said it would deliver a quick and painless death.

But Mr Polnay said it was because it would have been too tricky to spike her mother with more potent versions, when the toxin is inhaled or injected.

He said: "If you were going to murder your mother you needed to spike it - spike her drink. The reason you wanted ingestion over inhalation was because you had murder in mind."

Mr Polnay said Patel wanted her mother "dead by Christmas".

Patel denied being "desperate" to kill her mother, insisting she never spiked her drink.

Mr Polnay said: "The truth is, to be with the man you loved you couldn't see any other way but to knock off your mum."

He added: "I suggest this Breaking Bad fantasy is one last desperate roll of the dice. The last story after all the other lies had been uncovered."

But Patel insisted she was not lying in court, saying: "The truth is, I could never hurt myself or my mother."

The case was adjourned until 10am tomorrow when closing speeches are expected.