An embittered former husband plotted for more than a year before shooting dead his heavily pregnant ex-wife with a crossbow in a “calculated act of revenge”, a court heard yesterday.

Ramanodge Unmathallegadoo nurtured a “deeply held desire for a most violent revenge” after his wife Devi left him and went on to marry another man.

The 51-year-old amassed a cache of deadly weapons at the bottom of her garden before launching his attack in November last year.

His former wife, who had changed her name to Sana Muhammad after re-marrying and converting from Hinduism to Islam, died from devastating internal injuries, the Old Bailey heard.

Her unborn baby boy survived after being delivered by Caesarean section. The crossbow bolt is thought to have missed the baby by just a few inches.

The jury at Unmathallegadoo’s murder trial was told that he launched his attack after plotting over the course of a year to kill Mrs Muhammad and her new partner, Imtiaz Muhammad, who she had met when came round to decorate the kitchen of their family home in Ilford, east London.