‘That’s it, I’m taking your eyes’ - Ilford woman attacked by paranoid father-in-law

Jageer Mirgind after the attack Archant

EXCLUSIVE: A Sikh woman partially-blinded by her father-in-law’s attempt to gouge her eyes has told how the horrific attack left her scarred and traumatised.

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Manjit Singh Mirgind Manjit Singh Mirgind

Manjit Singh Mirgind set upon his son’s wife in front of her young children because he thought she had cheated on her husband with a man of a different faith.

In the attack at her home, 30-year-old Jageer Mirgind was repeatedly punched, kicked and stabbed in the face as her children – aged three and six – pleaded with their grandfather to stop and take them to school.

The victim – who has since moved to Nottingham and separated from her husband – described the “horrible” assault, which she said came after weeks of him following her in his car.

Jageer said her father-in-law, who came round to her home in Kensington Gardens, Ilford, on the morning of December 18, had given her present the day before.

“He said ‘Did you like your present?’ I said: ‘I did not like the present. I do not need presents. I just need my husband.’ And that’s when he flipped.

“He shouted at me: ‘What’s your problem?’

“And I said: ‘You’re my problem – just let us be, I don’t need to be followed, I’m safe in my own house’.

“Then he slapped me. I tried to stop him. I tried to get upstairs but he pulled me down.

“Then he punched me in the face three times and strangled me.

“The kids were shouting ‘stop it, don’t, just stop it, leave her alone’.”

In front of his grandchildren, now aged four and seven, Mirgind told Jageer he was going to kill her before going to get a kitchen knife.

“I looked up and there he was,” she said.

“He started shouting ‘you’ve been sleeping with a Paki, you bitch’.

“Then he said: ‘That’s it, I’m taking your eyes’. I tried to scream but I couldn’t because he’d strangled me.”

Mirgind then stabbed his daughter-in-law in the face several times, leaving her with blurred vision in her left eye and half-vision in her right.

Jageer also suffered injuries to her left arm trying to defend herself.

Six months on, she said she still experiences pain in her wrist and is undergoing physiotherapy.

Jageer spent five days in hospital before moving up to Nottingham to live with family.

“Christmas Day was horrible. My face was all bloodied and yellow,” said Jageer.

“It was really hard. I was helped up and down stairs by my nephew. My mum had to bathe me – literally bathe me. I felt like a child.

“I was throwing up blood, because I must have swallowed some in the attack.”

Jageer, who is now looking to begin studying an Open University course in health and social care, still undergoes regular counselling, as do her traumatised children.

The attack also led to the breakdown of her marriage to Vikram Bir Singh Mirgind, 27, who is no longer allowed to see the children without supervision.

On Friday, Manjit Singh Mirgind was jailed at Snaresbrook Crown Court for 10 years and eight months.

He was initially charged with attempted murder over the incident, but prosecutors later accepted a guilty plea to the charge of grievous bodily harm.

Police described the attack as being motivated by “honour”, triggered by Mirgind’s belief Jageer was sleeping with a Muslim.

Read more:

Police release graphic image of woman after father-in-law’s ‘frenzied’ attack

Ilford man stabbed daughter-in-law in face as he thought she’d been unfaithful to his son