Press Association
Saturday 11th February 2012
A woman who survived being poisoned by her fiance's jilted lover has said that she feels her life "has stopped".
Gurjeet Choongh, of Southall, west London, ate the same curry as Lakhvinder Cheema, who did not survive.
His former lover Lakhvir Singh was jailed for at least 23 years last month at the Old Bailey for murder.
Miss Choongh, 22, told BBC Asian Network: "I feel very tense and that my life has stopped.
"First you think you will get married and start a new life but this changed it all.
"I still have those memories of my future with him, but he has gone and it is finished. I constantly think about what my future is going to be and about what has happened and it makes me very upset."
The court heard that Singh, 45, a married mother of three, could not bear the thought of her 39-year-old former lover marrying Miss Choongh.
She slipped into his Feltham home - used as a love nest during their 16-year secret affair - and sprinkled poison into curry in the fridge.She is thought to have brought deadly aconite from India in order to make Mr Cheema so ill that he returned to her.
Mr Cheema and Miss Choongh ate the meal while discussing plans for their wedding, due two weeks later on St Valentine's Day last year. Within hours, Mr Cheema died in agony and Miss Choongh was fighting for her life.
She survived and was in the public gallery to see Singh, whose husband is ill with cancer, led from the court.
