A NORTHFLEET man attempted to kill his ex-wife’s new husband in a “meat cleaver” attack.

Fifty-four-year-old Girdaware Singh Basra was found guilty at Maidstone Crown Court today of the attempted murder of Resham Singh as well as wounding with intent and breaching a restraining order in relation to his ex-wife Sukhvinder Kaur Basra.

The three were at Basra’s home in Beaumont Drive, Northfleet, celebrating the Sikh Diwali festival on October 27 when a fight broke out in the bedroom shortly after midnight.

Mr Singh, 32, told police at the time that he was intervening in an argument between Basra and his wife when Basra hit him two or three times with an eight inch long, four inch wide meat cleaver, then strangled him.

He told police: “I thought Basra was trying to kill me. I couldn’t breathe. He put a lot of pressure on my throat. I then bit his ear.”

Mr Singh sustained “serious wounds” and Mrs Kaur Basra’s finger was cut trying to break up the fight.

Neither victim supported the prosecution.

Mr Singh changed his statement in November claiming the weapon was a not cleaver. He later said he lied and had started the fight.

He did not testify at the trial and though his wife did, she was treated as a hostile witness.

Mrs Kaur Basra initially told police the couple were mugged, then said Basra attacked her husband.

She told the court that Mr Singh attacked Basra, who hit him with a table lamp in self-defence.

She said she lied to get her old marital home back.

Judge Jeremy Gold QC told the jury it was “perfectly entitled to throw [its] hands up in frustration” at the accounts.

Before the couple’s divorce in July 2010, Basra was convicted of two counts of battery on his wife for which he received a fine and a restraining order in June 2010.

He spent three months in prison later that year for breaching the order.

Basra maintained Mr Singh attacked him, biting his ear, and said he hit him with a table lamp in “desperation”.

Police recovered neither a lamp nor a knife, although experts suggested a “blade-like” instrument was used.

The jury had to consider whether Basra intended to kill Mr Singh.

Judge Gold said: “The prosecution say if you hack at a man’s head with a bladed article, such as a cleaver or a knife, what other intention could you have?”

Basra was remanded in custody to for sentencing on July 23.