Poison curry victim: 'Everything was dark, I couldn't feel my face'

A bride-to-be today dramatically described to an Old Bailey jury how she was poisoned by an ancient toxin mixed into her curry.

Gurjeet Choough, 22, said she could not move, felt numb, was unable to stand and "everything went dark." She was rushed to hospital with her fiancé Lakhvinder Cheema who was to die from the aconite poison, the court heard.

The pair were poisoned by his ex-lover of 15 years out of "jealousy, anger and revenge", the jury has been told.

Lakhvir Singh, 40, mixed the poison into the chicken curry Mr Cheema and Miss Choough were to eat less than a month before they were due to marry on St Valentine's Day last year.

Today Ms Choough, speaking through a Punjabi interpreter, told the court how her fiancé, nicknamed Lucky, had changed the locks on his house in Feltham because he feared Singh could gain entry.

She prepared the curry, which had been stored in the fridge after the previous night's meal — the couple had eaten it without a problem.

But she later found out that Singh had got into the kitchen earlier that day and had added something to the curry, according to flatmates.

Ms Choough microwaved the curry and served it with chapattis. She had two and Mr Cheema had three and then he asked for a second helping of the curry. They spent the next 10 minutes talking about her new shoes and their wedding plans before he started feeling ill.

"He said: My face is becoming numb and when I touch it I can't feel anything,' " she told the jury.

"I had a shower and then started feeling the same as him. He said everything seemed to be going dark, he was losing all feeling in his body. I was feeling the same — everything was going dark, I began to feel dizzy, I was unable to stand up, my tummy was hurting. "

At the West Middlesex hospital doctors put her into a coma and she remembered nothing else until, waking up several days later. Mr Cheema died within an hour of arriving. Singh, of Southall, has pleaded not guilty to administering poison with intent to endanger life in December 2008, and murder and attempted murder in January last year.

Ms Choough said her fiancé blamed his former lover moments before falling unconscious. They dialled 999 but the ambulance did not arrive and they had to be taken to hospital by Mr Cheema's sister and her two sons.

She told the jury: "He said: I think this problem is because of the food we have eaten.' Lucky said if Lakhvir had come round to the house today she has definitely put something in the food." The trial continues.