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Otago Daily Times
a day ago
- Otago Daily Times
Enraged 'mistress' kills innocent motorist while chasing lover's wife
A man's girlfriend became so enraged at seeing him in a recent photo with his family that she waited outside a school for his wife and then followed her in the car. Sharanjit Kaur tried to intimidate the other woman, at one point stopping in the middle of the road and hitting her car windows before following her again at speed. She eventually crashed into an oncoming car, killing an innocent member of the public as she drove on the wrong side of the road. The circumstances of the crash, which claimed Jonathan 'Jono' Baker's life on the morning of June 27 last year, have left his family devastated and angry. In a packed Hamilton District Court room this afternoon, nine family and friends read their heartbreaking statements to Judge Arthur Tompkins. Baker's mother-in-law, Colleen White, said the family could make some sense of an angry wife chasing her husband's mistress, but 'a mistress chasing down his wife over a legitimate family photograph reads like a bad novel'. Kaur's counsel, Anjeet Singh, acknowledged her client was a 'deeply troubled woman' but urged the judge not to send the 40-year-old to prison. 'She was hammering the driver's side window' Kaur and her partner, known only in court proceedings as 'Mr R', had been together for eight years and were living together. However, Mr R was still married to his wife, known as 'Mrs R', who lives with his parents and children. Mrs R was aware of her husband's relationship with Kaur; but he had refused to get divorced and often stayed at the familial home, causing 'ill-feeling' on behalf of Kaur. Several nights before the crash, Mr R took his wife and family to an Indian restaurant at Botany Downs, East Auckland, and took a photograph, with Mrs R's hand on her husband's shoulder, and also showing her wedding ring. About 8.40am on June 27, when at Horsham Downs School for her children's school assembly, Mrs R got a call from Mr R that Kaur had seen the photo and wanted her to say the photo was historic. She wouldn't and instead confirmed it was recent, and then heard Kaur 'shouting angrily' in the background. Kaur stormed off, and Mr R went to work. After the assembly finished, Mrs R began driving home, and as she passed Resolution Drive spotted Kaur's vehicle parked on the roadside. Kaur then pulled out and followed Mrs R on to Henderson Rd and overtook her before pulling in front of her and travelling alongside her. Kaur would slow down then speed up as Mrs R travelled behind her, in what Judge Tompkins found was an attempt to intimidate or scare her. She then drove ahead and stopped her Toyota in the middle of both lanes, forcing Mrs R to also stop. Kaur got out and began 'hammering' her driver's window. Fearing for her safety, Mrs R drove around her on to the grass to get away. Kaur got back in her Toyota and chased her, as Mrs R drove at around 120kmh to try to get away. After turning right on to Boyd Rd, Kaur pulled up alongside Mrs R's vehicle as she travelled at 120kmh. That stretch of road is straight but leads to a steep incline towards the intersection with Williamson Rd. Kaur remained travelling on the wrong side of the road, driving at between 125kmh and 136kmh, and as she reached the crest of the hill, collided with Baker's vehicle, which was coming the other way. Kaur braked, reducing her speed to around 109kmh at the point of impact. Baker suffered a ruptured aorta and was killed instantly. Kaur suffered minor injuries, while Mrs R called emergency services. Sharanjit Kaur was jailed for four years when she appeared in the Hamilton District Court today on a charge of reckless driving causing the death of Jonathan Baker last year. Photo / Belinda Feek 'I cried ... I yelled' Baker, 49, was a respected staff member at the Department of Corrections and worked as a team leader at community probation. On the morning of the crash, he'd just visited a team member who was off work with an injury, and after leaving was going to drop off his vehicle for a service before heading back to work in central Hamilton. Baker's wife, Andrea, described the last time she saw her beloved husband on the morning of the crash; how he'd made her a coffee, said 'I love you', before giving her a cheeky smile and leaving for the day. She then recalled being given the devastating news that he'd been killed in a crash. 'I cried ... I yelled. 'My heart is almost constantly consumed by [his] loss and trying to work out my new normal.' Devout Christians, she knew her husband would want her to forgive Kaur, 'but that's something I don't feel like doing'. 'But as I know, with forgiveness comes freedom. 'You took a man out of this world whose heart was all about making a difference and trying to help others,' she told Kaur. 'A conviction was inevitable' Crown solicitor Kasey Dillon said Kaur 'became enraged' after seeing the family photo, and as a result became involved in 'a persistent course of bad driving ... and brake-checking' Mrs R. She also had accumulated 65 demerit points because of speeding in the past, in one case between 120kmh and 130kmh. Kaur had told a pre-sentence report writer that she was 'running late for work'. Kaur's actions had 'irrevocably impacted' the lives of Baker's family, friends and associates. Dillion urged the judge to take a starting point of five years' jail but not to issue any discounts for remorse, rehabilitation or plea. 'There was no defence to this charge. A conviction was inevitable.' 'She is deeply troubled' Singh took the opportunity to give Baker's family a bit more context around her client's actions and labelled her as 'deeply troubled'. 'The photo she found on the day of the accident was the inciting incident that led to a psychological collapse. 'Years of mental health decline precipitated the offending, and this has been given clinical context and may explain Ms Kaur's behaviour as something significantly more than rage.' A clinical psychologist found Kaur's driving occurred during a 'convergence of a chronic psychological deterioration', with the argument before the crash acting as an 'acute stressor'. The specialist found Kaur reached a 'psychological breaking point'. Singh accepted with White's comments that Kaur's behaviour made 'no sense at all', but she explained that Mr R had constantly reassured Kaur that he no longer maintained any relationship with his wife. He had also promised her that once she divorced her husband, he would divorce his wife. 'These assurances led Ms Kaur to believe that Mr R intended to stay with her and for them to have a committed relationship. 'The discovery of the photograph ... shattered these assurances and brought to the forefront years of accumulated anxiety, uncertainty and emotional turmoil that simmered for years. 'It was an eight year-long relationship.' Singh urged the judge to hand down a home detention sentence. Judge Tompkins agreed with Dillon's submissions and, after taking a five-year starting point, allowed a 20% discount for her guilty plea, jailing Kaur for four years.
Indian Express
2 days ago
- Health
- Indian Express
Doctor's Day: ‘Our patients taught us a life-force beyond therapy'
Doctors are always hope-givers. But they also know that therapies can go so far and no further. It is the patient's faith, trust and shared decisions that decide when a case becomes something more than just a clinical cause and effect study. When a patient shares their lived experience, fears, anxieties and forms an individual bond with the doctor, that empathy is the one that decides the recovery from even the most critical cases. On Doctor's Day, these doctors recall the patients they never forgot, simply because they learnt a bigger lesson from them. The song of life Dr Shrinidhi Nathany, Consultant, Molecular Haematology and Oncology, Fortis Memorial Research Institute, Gurugram Mrs R, a 61-year-old retired classical singer from Jaipur, came to us with profound fatigue and unexplained bruises. Her blood counts were collapsing. A bone marrow biopsy confirmed acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a difficult fight at her age. She needed to be treated intensively and early. Her family hesitated. 'She's too fragile for chemotherapy,' they feared. She had mild hypertension, lived alone and had never been hospitalised. But R looked me in the eye and said, 'Doctor, if I sang on stage for 40 years without missing a note, I'll face this too.' She lost her hair, her voice went hoarse, and mucositis (inflammation in the mouth and gut as a side effect of chemotherapy) meant even drinking water was painful. But every evening, she'd hum — not full ragas, just low soft notes, as if reminding herself she was still alive and believing she was still in charge of her body. On day 28, her marrow was clear. By month three, she had achieved molecular remission. She now visits our clinic every three months, bringing sweets for the nurses and singing to other patients undergoing chemotherapy in the waiting area. 'Tell them,' she says, 'the body breaks, but the music doesn't stop.' Climbing mountains with one lung Dr Viny Kantroo, pulmonologist, Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals, Delhi During the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, a man in his early 40s came to us in a very serious condition. He had contracted black fungus, a rare but deadly infection known as mucormycosis. It was one of the more dangerous complications we saw in post-COVID patients at the time. In his case, the infection had spread to his left lung, and the entire upper lobe of the lung had become necrotic, which means it was dead tissue. We had no choice but to operate and remove the affected part of his lung. But just as we thought things were getting better, the infection began spreading again, this time, to the remaining lower part of the same lung. The only option left to save his life was to remove the entire left lung, a surgery known as a pneumonectomy. It's a major operation, and living with one lung comes with challenges. But we had to try. The surgery was successful but I wasn't sure as to how much he could push his body. Emotionally, he had just lost his mother to Covid (he was her caregiver and had contracted the virus at home) and was battling personal issues. 'If I am breathing again, then life definitely wants something from me,' he told me. A heavy smoker, he quit gradually, setting daily targets and then eliminating cigarettes completely. He never missed his physiotherapy sessions and exercises, battling bouts of breathlessness, pushing his sessions by a few minutes every day to get his lung working. He began making efforts to reconnect with loved ones, something he had stopped doing. A few months after his recovery, he messaged me a photo, no caption, no words, just a picture of him standing atop a mountain, smiling. He now travels at high altitudes, something we never would have imagined possible for someone with one lung, especially a former smoker. Since then, every time he travels to a new peak, he sends me a photo. Just a single image. That's all. But for me, it speaks volumes. The human spirit is stronger than we think. Sometimes when you have nothing left, you find the strength to climb your highest mountain. The mother who fought for her child Dr Ranjan Shetty, lead cardiologist and medical director, Sparsh Hospitals, Bengaluru I remember this national volleyball champion from Kolar, Karnataka, who developed peripartum cardiomyopathy, a rare form of heart failure that affects women during the last month of pregnancy or within five months after delivery. It's characterised by a weakening of the heart muscle, leading to reduced pumping ability. It's considered idiopathic, meaning it arises spontaneously without a clear pre-existing condition. Her heart collapsed multiple times after birth, requiring her to be put on a ventilator. She needed a heart transplant but while we tried to fast track her case, we had to put her 80 days on the ECMO machine, which acts as a temporary heart-lung bypass. Completely bed-bound, weaning her off the machine for transplant surgery was a challenge as her legs and arteries had wasted. She felt too tired to speak but her eyes had a light and her lips would always be curled up in a smile. She always gestured to ask about her new-born, whom she could neither hold nor feed. And despite her immobile condition, she kept moving her limbs and fingers as much as she could, almost as if she was exercising before a match. She never had a nervous breakdown although we had almost given up but she told us to do our bit and she would do hers. She surprised us even more after a transplant, walking around in a week. She now comes for follow-ups with her child. It has been three years now.
Telegraph
2 days ago
- Automotive
- Telegraph
I piled my young family into the new Skoda Elroq EV. Here's how it fared with our chaos
It was an unusual premise for a car launch. Instead of spiriting journalists to some foreign shore, Skoda was to send us an example of its new electric SUV, the Elroq, to take to a launch event at Chewton Glen, a fancy hotel in the New Forest. 'Bring your family and as many of your four-legged friends as you can fit – everyone is welcome,' read the invitation. So it was that on a slightly fraught Friday evening, Mrs R, the two kids and Luther the black labrador cross, as well as all our luggage, were all stuffed into the Elroq that had arrived earlier that day – complete with roofbox. In a situation all too familiar to family trips, we were cutting it fine. We couldn't leave until after the four-year-old had finished school for the day. But we had to arrive in time to get the both kids fed and off to bed before the 16-month-old grew too tired and had a serious sense of humour failure in the middle of the posh hotel restaurant. Skoda must be pretty confident about the Elroq, because this is the sort of journey – indeed, the sort of weekend away – that really puts a family car to the test. And with the whole family on board, the Elroq would have nowhere to hide. Pros Plush, versatile interior Decent range and charging speeds Sensibly priced Cons Ride can be firm at lower speeds Boot not as big as it could be Not all that exciting to drive Roq and roll Put simply, the Elroq is a smaller version of the Enyaq. It sits on Volkswagen's now-ubiquitous EV 'skateboard' platform, as used in the VW ID.3 and Cupra Born. But this is an odd fish in the VW Group – longer and taller than the ID.3/Born twins and with a proper SUV bent, but also more compact than the ID.4 and Enyaq, which are much larger SUVs. Yet it's perfectly sized to take on the growing glut of Nissan Qashqai -sized EVs that seem to be finding favour with buyers. Which is all the more reason it's so odd that the Elroq is the only car of its size and shape on VW's line-up. However, Skoda's talent for niche-finding has been hot of late, and you can't help but feel the Elroq is one of those Goldilocks cars that feels neither too big, nor too small, but just the right size. Inside, there's enough passenger space that even with two occupied car seats, nobody feels cramped as we zip down the M3. Even with two bulky car seats in situ, there's still plenty of space for the younger family members – and their boxes of toys and books that sit in the rear footwells. Further forward, the endless supply of nooks and crannies to store keys, snacks, drinks bottles – and confiscated toys – proves a boon. Further back, luggage space in the Elroq isn't exactly poor – at 470 litres, it's about the same as in a Kia EV3 – but neither is it class-leading, given the Renault Scenic will give you far more. And if you have a large, genial, but slightly dopey dog to carry, well, you'll probably want to keep in mind that he'll take up most of the boot. Which is why the roofbox houses the rest of our luggage – including the pushchair – and there's one holdall stashed between the child seats in the middle row position. We don't face these sorts of compromises in our own family car, a Superb estate; with the boot split in two by a divider, there's usually room back there for the dog, the pram and most of the luggage, without resorting to a roofbox. Living it up But if you want a Superb, you can still buy a Superb. The Elroq is, to be fair, a very different kind of car. It feels more modern, too; in fact, it feels distinctly upmarket from within, with a lovely swathe of upholstery that spans the dashboard, providing a tactility that has you fighting off the temptation to caress it. As is the way these days, the dashboard is dominated by a large touchscreen that sits atop it. This is based on Volkswagen's oft-derided software, which has been improved several times in recent years, in the process going from teeth-grindingly frustrating to merely tolerable. It's at its best with this Skoda skin on it; while there are still some glitches that cause you to have to stifle a wail, it generally works OK. It is a shame, though, that having gone to the trouble to develop its excellent Smart Dials for the Superb and Kodiaq, which allow for physical control of the heating and ventilation, Skoda hasn't brought them to the Elroq. That feels like an opportunity missed. We arrive at the hotel as darkness falls, still feeling slightly stressed – though that's no fault of the cars. Hold-ups on the motorway mean we're late for our dinner reservation and arrive with tired, hungry children in the back. What's impressive, however, is how efficient the Elroq has been. It has actually managed an official energy efficiency of 3.4 miles per kilowatt hour (mpkWh) according to the trip computer, versus an official figure of 3.9 – not bad when you consider it's fully laden and carries the additional drag of a roofbox. We are trying the 59kWh (usable) model, badged 60, which is the smaller of the two batteries on offer, with an official range of 265 miles. A 77kWh (usable) model, badged 85, has an official rating of 360 miles. Expect to see real-world ranges of between 180 and 212 miles for the former and 252 and 288 miles for the latter. After a drive of just over 100 miles, we have 45 per cent of the battery remaining, which our Elroq reckons will get us just over 100 miles more – probably not quite enough to get us home comfortably, but plenty to get to a public charger, or to drive around for the weekend. Give peas a chance As it is, though, a man in a Skoda jacket whisks our Elroq to one of Chewton Glen's many charging stations while we attempt the near-impossible task of getting an over-tired 16-month-old to eat something, anything, from a menu conceived by James Martin. In the end, he settles for bread, cheese and a few cursory peas, before we admit defeat and head for bed. The following morning, Skoda has planned a 90-minute family 'treasure hunt', complete with checkpoints, challenges and quiz questions. And it's on the New Forest's rutted roads that we find our first real problem with the Elroq: it's just a bit too stiff over bumps. It's not intolerable, but there's a woodenness to the way the suspension reacts that you'd rather wasn't there. It lacks the unctuous smoothness of an Octavia, or even an Enyaq, for that matter. We hadn't noticed any discomfort on the way down, which suggests it's only an issue on these less kempt roads and that at speed, on a motorway, the Elroq is much smoother. The slightly stiff set-up does provide good body control; even with the extra weight of the roofbox, the Elroq steadfastly refuses to lean over. As a result, there's plenty of grip and traction. The steering is direct, too, and the nose turns in well, though you'd never really call the Elroq fun as it doesn't give you much feedback; crisp, confident and reassuring is more like it. As the route wears on, though, the mood grows tense. A series of… well, let's be diplomatic and call them map-reading misunderstandings, has us ricocheting repeatedly around one corner of the New Forest. In one village, pedestrians look askance as we pass first in one direction, then back the other way, then again a third time. Happily, the Elroq's easy-going way of doing things exerts a restful influence. With the aid of a judicious stop at Milford-on-Sea for ice creams all round and a quick gawp at the Isle of Wight, calm is restored. How many ice creams will you be able to afford with the change if you go for an Elroq, though? Well, a fair few, given it's not as expensive as you might expect. In this specification, it'll set you back a little over £34,000 – about the same, in other words, as its petrol equivalent, a Karoq 1.5 TSI SE L Edition. Having said that, it's about £1,400 pricier than the equivalent EV3 – which has a cheaper-feeling interior but also a longer warranty and funkier styling. Against most other rivals, however, the Elroq is priced reasonably competitively. The Telegraph verdict It needs to be priced as such, because it enters what is now quite a crowded part of the market. But as we head for home, I can't help but think that the Elroq will likely do enough to win over buyers. There are a couple of foibles, of course. The boot could be bigger, the ride could be more pliant at low speeds. Then there's that touchscreen. It won't set your heart aflame with excitement, either – although on a weekend away with kids and dog in tow, that matters not a jot. What's more important is how easily a car like this fits into your life; how well it does away with hassle. And that, really, is the Elroq's trump card – because it's so well thought-out, it manages to make family outings such as this a doddle. Which is all you really want in a family car – electric or otherwise. The facts On test: Skoda Elroq 60 Edition Body style: five-door SUV On sale: now How much? £34,460 on the road (range from £31,510) How fast? 99mph, 0-62mph in 8.0sec How economical? 3.9mpkWh (WLTP Combined) Electric powertrain: AC permanent magnet synchronous motor with 59kWh battery (usable), 165kW on-board charger, Type 2/CCS charging socket Electric range: 279 miles (WLTP Combined) Maximum power/torque: 201bhp/229lb ft CO2 emissions: 0g/km (tailpipe), 19g/km (well-to-wheel) VED: £10 first year, then £195 Warranty: 3 years / 60,000 miles (mileage unlimited in first two years) Spare wheel as standard: no (not available) The rivals Kia EV3 Air Standard Range 201bhp, 270 miles, £33,005 on the road Probably the standard-bearer in this class, the EV3's eye-catching looks, airy interior and sharp driving dynamics make it a tempting EV. And this entry-level version is aggressively priced, undercutting all of its rivals – including the Elroq – despite also having a seven-year warranty. No wonder it was voted UK Car of the Year for 2025. Vauxhall Grandland Electric Design 210bhp, 323 miles, £37,355 on the road Vauxhall doesn't do a 'small battery' version of the Grandland, so you have to pay a bit more for one – but you also get a great deal more range (not to mention more power). For this price the entry-level Design version feels stingily equipped. And while it's perfectly competent, it's also rather dull. Omoda E5 Comfort 201bhp, 267 miles, £33,065 on the road This cheap Chinese alternative that isn't; given its tacky interior, fiddly touchscreen and incessant driver 'aids', it feels as though it should cost way less. The E5 isn't as roomy as its rivals, nor is it as good to drive – and it simply isn't affordable enough to justify these downsides. Beware the 'seven-year' warranty, too – there's a cut-off at only three years/40,000 miles after which quite a few are no longer covered.
