Jurors on Harjit Chaggar trial visit former Sani Globe grocery in Luton Road, Chatham, now Chatham Food Centre
Published: 15:00, 20 March 2014
A jury has visited the store where the decomposing body of a woman was found - in the basement of a popular food store.
Jurors joined legal representatives and Judge Adele Williams to tour the former Sani Globe grocery store in Luton Road, Chatham, where widow Harjit Chaggar's body was found.
Mrs Chaggar disappeared while out shopping on September 2 last year, and her body was found 12 days later in the grocery store.
Canterbury Crown Court had heard earlier in the trial the grandmother had been assaulted and bled to death for up to six hours in the basement store room of the shop after being thrown through a hatch while still alive.
Around 40 people, escorted by two police officers, retraced the last known steps of the 69-year-old and looking around where it was she was found, 12 days after her death in September.
Chatham Food Centre, as it is now, was closed to the public for an hour while the group were guided around the shelves of food and large fridge-freezers.
After being directed to a few points of interest around the road-side shop they left the building and made their way down Magpie Hall Road and into the back of the shop.
Police stopped the traffic for a few minutes while the jury stood on the road, and were shown the loading bay and back entrance.
Finally, they were taken inside and into the basement store room where Mrs Chaggar was supposedly dumped, until the smell caused the alarm to be raised.
Abdul Hannan, 44, of Aldon Close, Maidstone; Murshed Miah, 38, of Wheeler Street, Maidstone; and 28-year-old Mohammad Islam, of Windmill Road, Gillingham, have all denied murdering Mrs Chaggar.
Rasad Miah, 27, of Otway Street, Chatham, has denied preventing the lawful burial or cremation of a corpse.
The trial continues.
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Lizzie Massey