Indian-Origin Sahil expelled from Oxford University for stalking, orders: UK Court

Sahil was handed four months imprisonment and ordered to leave for Hong Kong

London: A 22-year-old Indian-origin student found guilty of stalking by a UK court has been handed a suspended sentence and is to leave for Hong Kong after his university expelled him.

Sahil Bhavnani (student) threatened a female student at Oxford Brookes University. Later, on Thursday, Sahil was handed four months imprisonment. He was suspended for two years and imposed a five-year restraining order.

According to Judge Nigel Daly, he pronounced the verdict at the Oxford Crown Court after being informed that Bhavnani will be returning to Hong Kong with his father on Saturday.

Taking notes from this, defence lawyer Richard Davies told the court, that, “Unfortunately for Mr Bhavnani, it's [Oxford Brookes University] to expel him from the university and the degree he was on."

A suspended sentence is a sentence on conviction for a criminal offence, the serving of which the court orders to be deferred to allow the defendant to perform a period of probation.

As per the Oxford Mail, accused Sahil Bhavnani was due to be sentenced last month, but when the court heard it could be six weeks before the university decided on whether the engineering student would be thrown off his course, the case was adjourned to January 2022.

Despite that, the decision was brought forward again by the university to conclude the case this week.

Uring the hearing, Judge Daly told Bhavnani, "If you breach that [restraining] order there is a maximum of five years' imprisonment to serve. I hope that your obsession with her is over."

Recently, the court heard that Bhavnani made threats in a 100-page letter delivered to the female nursing student, who cannot be named for legal reasons.

He claimed that he had copied the threats from poetry found online.

The victim said that she was terrified that Bhavnani would sexually assault her.

Bhavnani pleaded guilty to stalking, but not guilty to a more serious form of the offence. He has already spent a month on remand after breaching his bail earlier.

"I started getting six-minute-long voice messages saying he was going to make me be his wife, make me have his children, make me live with him,” the victim had told the BBC.