The husband of murdered Hayes woman Pardeep Kaur has said he “always thinks of what she must have gone through” when she was sexually attacked and killed last October.
Homeless man Vadims Ruskuls was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 30 years at the Old Bailey on Wednesday April 12 after being convicted the day before.
Mrs Kaur's husband, Rachpal Singh, sat in court as the jury delivered its verdict after just over a day of deliberations.
'Our dreams are shattered'
He said: "We hoped for a good life here with our daughter, but something terrible happened to us and now our dreams are shattered.
"The circumstances of Pardeep's death will always haunt me because Vadims Ruskuls has not given an explanation."
Mrs Kaur had been on her way to the Heathrow hotel where she worked as a housekeeper when she was attacked by Latvian national Ruskuls on October 17 last year.
'I have not forgotten her'
During the sentencing, Judge Richard Marks QC said: "Anyone who could do what you did must be regarded as extremely dangerous.
"What a dreadful way for Pardeep Kaur, a decent, hard-working young woman, to die.
"As her husband put it graphically in his victim impact statement, 'during this trial I have seen photos of her clothing in waste land.
"It has been six months since she was murdered but I have not forgotten her for even six seconds and I always think about what she must have gone through on that dark morning when she was killed'."
The judge told Ruskuls he had not shown "one iota of remorse" for what he had done.
He will be deported once he has served his prison sentence.
The week-long trial at the Old Bailey heard how Ruskuls was thought to be sleeping rough with his mother beneath the bridge crossing the M4 when he pounced on Mrs Kaur.
Stalked the 30-year-old Mrs Kaur
On the morning of Monday October 17 last year, Ruskuls was caught on chilling CCTV footage as he stalked the 30-year old mother as she approached Harlington Bridge in Hayes.
They disappeared from view for 25 minutes before his shadowy figure emerged dragging Mrs Kaur's partly naked body on to waste ground, where she was hidden beneath branches and an old sleeping bag.
Prosecutor Crispin Aylett QC told jurors that Mrs Kaur had scratched Ruskuls' face in a desperate attempt to get away but her screams were drowned out by the traffic.
The ground where her body was dumped was a "bleak spot" used by rough sleepers, drunks and drug addicts, he said.
Her badly decomposed body was discovered almost a week later by a visiting Norwegian Detective Chief Inspector Kenneth Berg who spotted a human foot sticking out.
Recognised by local officer
Ruskuls was caught after local PC Richard Lewis recognised the stooped figure in the CCTV footage as the man he had spoken to the day after Mrs Kaur's disappearance.
In the early hours, the constable had been called to a house in Hayes to a report of a "stoned" man trying to open the front door looking like he had been "dragged through a hedge".
The officer found the suspect walking barefoot with scratches to his left cheek and neck, the court heard.
Following his arrest for the murder of Mrs Kaur, Ruskuls' DNA was found on the victim's ankle, sock and the left cup of her bra with a probability of "one in a billion", jurors were told.
A post-mortem examination failed to establish how she died but Mr Aylett said it was obvious from the way she had been found that it was murder.
Ruskuls refused to explain his actions
The defendant, who denied murder, refused to make any comment in police interviews and declined to give evidence in court.
Detective Sergeant Nick Miller, of Scotland Yard, said Ruskuls sexually assaulted Mrs Kaur and "effectively stubbed her life out".
He said it was a "terrifying" case but added: "Thankfully, stranger killings are incredibly rare in this country."
Detective Inspector Jamie Stevenson added: "This has been a truly shocking and horrendous case and Ruskuls has proved himself to be a violent and dangerous rapist and murderer.
"Pardeep was walking to work, as she did every day, when she suffered a horrific fate at the hands of Ruskuls, who sexually attacked and killed his defenceless victim before leaving her body in woodland. It is everybody's worst nightmare."
Judge Marks commended the police investigation and said the court was indebted to PC Lewis
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