The heartbroken sister of a woman killed by her gay husband so he could live with his male lover told him he is ‘evil, cruel and malicious’ as they came face to face in court today.

Pharmacist Mitesh Patel choked his wife Jessica with a Tesco bag for life so he could cash in on a life insurance policy and move in with his ‘soulmate ‘Dr Amit Patel.

He claimed she had been killed by burglars, but was snared when police examined his movements using a mobile phone fitness app.

As he was jailed for a minimum of 30 years today, Ms Patel’s younger sister, Divya, stared him in the face as he spoke in court.

The family of murdered Jessica Patel said her killer husband would ‘rot in hell’ today

Mitesh Patel, 37, strangled his wife Jessica, 34, at their home in Middlesbrough, so he could live with his gay lover

The killer and his gay lover Amit Patel in 2012, during one of their holidays together in the lead-up to the murder

The victim’s sister, Divya Patel. said: ‘The one thing we hope and prayed for above anything else was that in her final moments she did not suffer.

‘The cruel reality is that she did in fact suffer she knew exactly who her killer was and he mercilessly ignored her attempts to fight for her own life as he ended it.

‘We can only imagine the fear and panic she must have felt knowing herself this was it thinking of that moment makes our hearts so heavy.

‘Only Mitesh himself can truly answer why he did this. Everything he has done has been purely for selfish reasons he could have divorced her, taken everything he wanted, he did not need to take her life he had no right to take this evil, cruel and malicious step.’

Turning to face Patel she said: ‘We do not just pray, we know she will be free from you forever as she will rest in heaven while you will rot in hell.’

Mitesh Patel, 37, showed no emotion as Mr Justice James Goss told him: ‘You are a selfish man, business driven, wanting a very successful life and wishing to retire at 40.

‘You were also wanting to commit to a life with another man on your own terms and you well knew that insurance policies would realise £2m on Jessica’s death.’

He said that a 30 year minimum term was reserved for only cases where the seriousness of the offence is ‘particularly severe.’  He added: ‘This is such a case.’

The court heard Jessica was aware her husband was having affairs with men behind her back

Patel ransacked their home after the murder to try to make it look like a burglary

Patel plotted for five years to murder Jessica, who he had stayed with only in the hope she would bear him a child.

His plan was then to kill her, take the child and go to Australia for a new life with his ‘true love and soulmate’ Dr Amit Patel, 37, originally from West Yorkshire.

Throughout the trial at Teesside Crown Court, prosecutors claimed Dr Patel was kept informed by Mitesh Patel of his plot to murder Jessica, which he carried out on May 14th by injecting her with insulin before strangling and smothering her with a Tesco Bag for Life.

The killer planned to start a new life with Dr Amit Patel (pictured) in Australia

Before Patel was sentenced, Jessica’s family made statements.

Her younger sister Divya Patel said: ‘The one thing we hope and prayed for above anything else was that in her final moments she did not suffer. The cruel reality is that she did in fact suffer she knew exactly who her killer was and he mercilessly ignored her attempts to fight for her own life as he ended it.

‘We can only imagine the fear and panic she must have felt knowing herself this was it thinking of that moment makes our hearts so heavy.

‘Only Mitesh himself can truly answer why he did this. Everything he has done has been purely for selfish reasons he could have divorced her, taken everything he wanted, he did not need to take her life he had no right to take this evil, cruel and malicious step.’

Turning to face Patel she said: ‘We do not just pray, we know she will be free from you forever as she will rest in heaven while you will rot in hell.’

Patel subdued his wife with an insulin injection as she came home from the pharmacy near their home they ran together, having researched the drug’s effects online.

He then used a Tesco bag for life to strangle her, again after looking up online how long it takes a person to die from strangulation well in advance.

Patel then began to ransack the couple’s large Victorian semi in the leafy suburb of Linthorpe, intent on making her murder look like burglary gone wrong.

Patel went to a pizza takeaway to make it look like he and his wife were having a night in

In messages between Patel and his gay lover, he had described Jessica as ‘a thorn in our life’ and said ‘if she can cause us upset it is only fair we do the same to her’.

He goes on: ‘I am telling you, her days are marked.’ The couple later talk about Jessica having a baby, with Amit Patel saying: ‘She might be around for 18 years,’ to which Patel replied: ‘No because I will curse it if I lose you. What are your thoughts if she goes early? Will you love it like your own?’

On May 2, Patel messaged his lover saying: ‘Hi baby. Ten days.’

Jessica was actually murdered 12 days at the couple’s Victorian home in Middlesbrough, Teesside.

A source close to the case said that Dr Patel was treated as a ‘person of interest,’ although he had never been interviewed as an accomplice or accessory to the murder.

However police have refused to rule out any future action against him. Detective Chief Inspector Matt Murphy-King, who led the investigation said: ‘We have spoken to Amit as a witness. It would not be proper for me to go into any detail as it could unduly prejudice any future proceedings should they ever be taken against him.’

The health app that snared the pharmacist: Detectives used steps to show he staged burglary

The killer pharmacist’s iPhone health app helped convict him in what was thought to be a legal first in the UK.

After his arrest, police seized Mitesh Patel’s handset and downloaded critical information about his movements, including when the phone moved and where.

The health app uses motion processors in the phone to monitor a user’s steps and when the handset is taken up a flight of stairs, and that evidence was used in court to show the killer’s frantic movements around his home, going upstairs to ransack rooms to stage a break-in after he had strangled his wife in the living room.

It also showed that after he returned from a trip out to buy food that night, he had gone upstairs after he pretended to find his wife’s stricken body, dashing into a bedroom to hide the house’s CCTV hard-drive in a suitcase full of clothes.

Investigators used data from the couple’s phones to show how the husband was frantically moving around after the killing as he staged the burglary

His wife’s phone was also analysed to reveal more evidence of Mitesh Patel’s lies.

Research of Jessica Patel’s health app showed the handset moved 14 steps at 7.44pm – the exact time Mitesh Patel left her lifeless body and fled the house to create an alibi.

He claimed his wife was still alive when he ventured out, but his story crumbled when the health app showed her phone remained motionless outside the couple’s Middlesbrough home until 8.40pm that night.

That was when a police officer picked it up near their front door, where it had been left by Patel, 37, to make it look like it had been dumped by an intruder.

A legal source said it was thought to have been the first use of such in-depth iPhone health app analysis in a major UK trial.