A failed medical student who spent up to a decade pretending he was a qualified doctor attempted to murder his family when he feared his secret would be exposed, a court heard on Monday.

Satya Thakor, 35, was jailed for 28 years for trying to kill his mother-in-law, wife and two other relatives during a stabbing rampage at a home in Wraysbury, Berks.

Reading Crown Court heard Thakor met his wife Nisha while studying biochemistry at a university in London. After failing his exams to qualify as a doctor, he lied by saying he had passed and kept up the pretence for up to a decade.

The court heard he visited a library every day to read medical books so that he sounded professional to his family and that he often pretended to work night shifts.

In May last year, Thakor realised his deception was about to be uncovered when his wife suggested a dream holiday to Los Angeles with their daughter and, because he had not been earning money, he could not provide the necessary funds.

He decided instead to buy some time by killing his mother-in-law, the court heard.

On May 14 last year, Thakor attacked his mother-in-law Gita Laxman with a knife while also trying to cover her head with a pillow. The woman's screams alerted Nisha who found her husband trying to attack her mother.

The court heard that Thakor then lunged at his wife and tried to stab her in the neck, successfully knifing her at least once and then again in the leg as she fell to the floor trying to kick him away.

He went on to stab his brother-in-law, Primal Laxman, who tried to intervene, before going into a room where Rishika Laxman, his sister-in-law, was sleeping. He stabbed her too, Judge Paul Dugdale was told.

In December, Thakor was convicted of three counts of attempted murder in relation to his wife, his mother-in-law and his brother-in-law. He was convicted of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm in relation to Rishika Laxman.

Judge Dugdale, sentencing, said: "You chose an extreme act of violence to get out of the difficulty that you were in. You could have stopped it as the madness that it was and as the idiotic decision that it was, but you chose not to."