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A fake doctor tried to kill his family fearing his lies would be rumbled after his wife suggested they go on holiday - which he had no money to pay for.

Failed medical student Satya Thakor had pretended to be a doctor for seven years, but was secretly spending his days at the library reading medical books.

As pressure began to mount following years of deceit, the 35-year-old decided to kill his mother-in-law in what was a "wholly illogical and wholly ridiculous" thought process, said a judge before jailing him for 28 years.

After attempting to smother and then stab Gita Laxman to death in her bed hoping to cause a non-existent trip to Los Angeles to be delayed, he was disturbed by his wife Nisha.

Thakor stabbed her and then did the same to his brother-in-law Primal Laxman and sister-in-law Rashika Laxman as she slept in her bed, reports Leicestershire Live.

When police arrived, he had locked himself in an en suite bathroom and was "shouting about demons".

He later claimed he saw hallucinations of demons on his family members, and he had been attempting to stab them.

His web of lies spread back years after he failed his exams at university and even on his wedding day he staged a car crash to get out of paying for his honeymoon.

Reading Crown Court heard that Thakor, formerly of North Evington, Leicester, first attacked Gita by trying to force tissue into her mouth and covering her face with a pillow.

Prosecutor Michael Roques said that after she started to struggle and scream, he stabbed her repeatedly and then stabbed his wife in the neck and leg as she ran to help her mum.

Judge Paul Dugdale, told the court: “He was buying some time. He was not intending to kill anyone else when he set out that evening, except his mother-in-law.

“I think it probably was a wholly illogical thought process but to him it seemed entirely reasonable.”

The build-up to the stabbing rampage at his mother-in-law's home in Wraysbury, Berkshire, had taken a number of years as the pressure of keeping up his lies mounted.

Mr Roques said: “He was studying to become a doctor at the time he met his future wife who was studying to become a solicitor and the two of them started a relationship.

“He told his family he had achieved the grades required to become a fully qualified doctor. What became apparent eventually was he did not complete that course and did not obtain the qualification he needed."

Thakor told his family he had found work as a doctor but was nearly caught out when he agreed to fund he and his wife’s honeymoon after they got married.

On the morning of his wedding, he orchestrated a car crash to get the honeymoon called off, the prosecution said.

Mr Roques said: “The defendant drove his car into the central reservation on the M4 motorway. As a result of that the wedding had to be delayed but still took place later that day.

“The honeymoon was cancelled. It is the prosecution’s case that there never was a honeymoon because he did not have the money.”

After getting married, the court heard Thakor had carried on the doctor deception for seven years, leaving home each morning and arriving home at night, pretending he was going to work but actually going to the local library and reading medical textbooks.

To maintain his lie, the prosecutor said, Thakor had pretended he had to work night shifts and left the house overnight.

Mr Roques said: “One Christmas, he said that he had to go to work and came back later and, when asked about why he seemed upset, he said that they had lost a patient that day.”

Even after the birth of their daughter, Thakor had survived purely on his wife's income throughout their marriage, a judge was told, telling her he was banking his earnings as a doctor to save towards their house.

However, when the family planned to take their young daughter on a dream holiday to America, Thakor decided he needed to buy more time.

Mr Roques went on: “He was supposed to have booked not only the flights to go to the States, but also the tickets for the various shows.

“No such flights or tickets had been booked. He was shortly going to be found out or at least there had to be a reason not to get on to the flights.”

Thakor told his wife that he needed to attend a plastic surgery workshop in Reading so the couple would need to stay with Nisha’s mother, Gita Laxman, at her home in Wraysbury, Berkshire.

On the morning of May 14 last year, Thakor walked into Ms Laxman’s bedroom and asked if he could use the en-suite toilet.

Mr Roques said: “She saw the defendant sitting astride her whilst she was in bed, trying to force tissue into her mouth and covering her head with a pillow.

“She struggled and screamed and he then began to stab her repeatedly. Her screams alerted Nisha, who thought her mother was having a nightmare.

“Nisha saw the defendant. He immediately ran past her and her instinctive reaction was that he was perhaps fighting a burglar or something of the sort. Nisha realised her mother was underneath a duvet on the bedroom floor.”

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 Dugdale was told.

Mr Roques said: “Police were called and attended. It became apparent the defendant had closed himself into Gita’s en-suite bathroom and when police officers entered wearing body worn cameras, those cameras recorded the defendant in the bath.

“Police officers quickly became aware he had stabbed himself a number of times. He was shouting about demons. It is right to say nobody had heard him shouting about demons until the police officers were present.”

Thakor had been sectioned under the Mental Health Act and told medics he had been told to carry out the attacks by demons and that he saw demons crawling on himself and others, so he felt he needed to stab them to get rid of the demons.

Mr Roques added: "He was asked by his psychiatrist to give some background. He maintained at that stage he was a practising doctor. It was only when he was asked where his team could be contacted to let them know where he was, that he admitted he was lying."

He was deemed well enough to be discharged and following a 10-day trial at Reading Crown Court, 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 his sister-in-law Rishika Laxman.

Defending, Bernard Tetlow QC, who called the facts of the case “unprecedented”, told the court Thakor would never again be in the unique set of circumstances which created the build up of stress that led him to offend.

Mr Tetlow said: “He just could not bring himself to accept what he considered to be his own failure and having embarked upon it just carried on for a very long time indeed.

“It is still a mystery in many ways as to why he chose to do that other than his own sense of failure and his own sense that he was letting everybody down.”

In a letter to the judge, Thakor wrote: “The shame of not being able to graduate as a doctor and the fear of admitting this would cause my family and friends to abandon me and my upcoming wedding to be called off, led me to lie and say that I had graduated and become a doctor.”

Judge Dugdale told him that his plan to kill his mother-in-law was "wholly illogical and wholly ridiculous."

The judge said: "You were at university in London when you met Nisha. You were studying biochemistry and she was studying law. The two of you met socially at a party. She felt that you were somebody special. She felt over the months that followed that you were someone she loved and she trusted.

"There is no doubt that at that stage and until she walked into her mother's bedroom to see what you were doing, she loved you absolutely.

"The two of you fell in love, you started a relationship, she passed her law exams, you did not get the mark you needed to pass your biochemistry to become a doctor.

"We all have failures in our lives in exams. Part of the essence of having a supportive family, which you do have Mr Thakor, is you can talk to them about it. It is no big deal.

"You decided that you simply could not face the truth that you were not going to become a doctor and you decided that the way you were going to get out of that was to tell everyone you were a qualified doctor who had started practice.

"You were prepared to go to what many people would think were quite extraordinary lengths to continue your deception."

Judge Dugdale said it was relevant that Thakor had carried out his attack on the Tuesday before the Friday he was due to fly on the non-existent holiday to Los Angeles.

The judge said: "You had reached the very last weekend before your deceptions would come crashing down around you and you had reached a crucial moment. What were you going to do?

"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."

Thakor was sentenced to 28 years in jail and made subject to a restraining order against his family which would last indefinitely.

The judge said he had reduced the sentence from one of 30 years to account for Thakor's good character, saying he did not believe he was a violent person outside of the unusual facts of this case.