Dublin, August 12, 2005
Laxmi Patel
NRI, (non-resident Indian) Dr. Panna Lal Palta
(62) , known as Christopher Newman, a Dublin health
clinic owner stabbed his young lover to death with
a kitchen knife after a late-night row, a court heard
today.
Ms. Georgina Eager, 28, was considering leaving Christopher
Newman, who she worked for at his Dublin clinic when
she was killed, a jury was told.
Newman, withdrew €1,200 from her bank account
and fled to London after repeatedly knifing her, Michael
Birnbaum QC, prosecuting, told Inner London Crown
Court.
Police had to break down the door to her ground floor
bedroom following her death in May 2003, the court
heard.
Jurors were told they found her face-down with a
knife in the back of her neck. A post mortem examination
showed she had been stabbed 29 times.
After being arrested, drunk, he denied killing her,
Mr Birnbaum said.
"He told police that he couldn`t believe that
she was dead and he definitely hadn`t killed her,"
he told the jury.
The defendant, originally from India, is being tried
in England because he is a British citizen, the court
heard.
He denies murder, pleading self-defence.
The court heard the defendant ran a clinic in Dublin
offering alternative therapies in St Peter`s Road
in the Walkinstown area of the city.
Georgina worked alongside him there and the pair
also had a sexual relationship, the court heard. She
lived in a house next door to the clinic rented from
him.
Mr Birnbaum said: "In early 2003 Georgina was
considering leaving both her job and the defendant.
"The couple were seen by witnesses arguing with
each other in St Peter`s Road on May 23.
"Some time after that argument the defendant
attacked her in her bedroom with a knife that he had
taken from the kitchen at the clinic.
"He inflicted upon her multiple stab wounds
from which she died."
When arrested in London, Newman had the key to the
bedroom in his pocket, the jury was told.
Following his initial denials he has now admitted
killing her.
Mr Birnbaum said: "He now believes that he killed
her but it was self-defence. She was the one that
was attacking him."
Newman was born Panna Lal Palta in India in 1942
and moved to Britain 20 years later, emigrating to
Ireland in the early 1990s.
During this time he adopted the name Saph Dean and
took to calling himself "Professor" although
it was unclear whether he had any qualifications entitling
him to do so, the prosecution said.
He also developed a successful business selling treatment
tables for massage.
Mr Birnbaum said: "Georgina herself regarded
him as a very learned man who had taught her a great
deal."
Others had a different opinion of him.
"He could be charming but also at times very
arrogant and domineering," Mr Birnbaum said.
Georgina, who graduated from Limerick University
with a degree in European Studies, left her job as
a make-up artist in summer 2002 to go and work for
Newman quickly coming to play a key role at his clinic.
"All who knew Georgina spoke of her as being
a very gentle person who liked to do the best for
others and who liked to help other people."
Others who knew her described her as being trustworthy,
sometimes to the extent of being naive.
Newman, after his arrest, had "nothing but praise"
for her describing her as "the most honest, honourable
lady".
He made out a will signing over his businesses to
her.
The jury was shown intimate cards they sent to each
other but also saw a number of notes she wrote which
the Crown said detailed her growing doubts about the
relationship.
Mr Birnbaum said: "They show that she loved
and revered the defendant for what she saw as his
learning and his outstanding personal qualities but
she didn`t love him sexually although they were having
a relationship."
One friend, Yvonne O`Hara, had said: "Georgina
seemed to be in awe of him."
Lisa O`Brien, a receptionist who worked for Newman,
had given evidence of how he disliked male clients
calling to make appointments with Georgina, questioned
who she had been speaking to on the phone, and looked
through her mobile telephone numbers.
Mr Birnbaum asked the jury to consider whether it
was her reluctance to stay with him that had led to
her death.
On the night she died, the court heard she had made
a number of phone calls to family and friends.
It was during one of these calls that she told her
family she would take a taxi to their house and when
they did not later hear from her they called police
who discovered her body the next night.
But by that time Newman had fled to London.
In the early hours of the morning he had visited
a Dublin casino where staff said he gambled away hundreds
of euros, before, the Crown alleged, returning to
St Peter`s Road where he killed Georgina.
When he arrived in London that evening he visited
his ex-wife in Islington and told her he had made
a "big mistake".
He said he was going to kill himself and took a taxi
to Westminster Bridge, buying a bottle of champagne
on the way.
He was arrested for being drunk and taken to Kennington
Police Station in south London and later arrested
over Georgina`s murder after detectives contacted
Irish police.
Denying that he had killed her, he said: "Anyone
who killed her should be shot."
Blood was found on a jacket, his trousers and the
heels of both his shoes.
Newman, dressed smartly in a dark suit, white shirt
and dark tie, held his head in his hands as the case
against him was opened today.
The trial is expected to last between four and five
weeks.
