London:
A 37-year-old Indian-origin graphic designer, charged with attempting to poison her "manipulative" mother in a popular TV series-style plot, yesterday told a UK court that her magistrate mom used to beat her.
Kuntal Patel allegedly tried to kill her mother, Meena Patel, by spiking her drink with deadly abrin after she forbade her to marry her boyfriend Niraj Kakad.
The plot has been described at her ongoing trial at Southwark Crown Court in London as being inspired by hit American TV series 'Breaking Bad'.
Taking to the witness box for the first time, Kuntal dabbed tears away from her eyes with a handker-chief as she spoke about how her mother beat her.
Kuntal lived with her mother and younger sister, Poonam, in east London, where her mother kept tabs on her "24/7" and "started slapping" her "on and off".
She turned to the Asian dating website Shaadi.com to find a man she could marry and have children with -- but her "manipulative" mother even wrote Patel's online dating profile for her.
When she struck up a relationship with Kakad, her mother quickly turned sour and tried to break them up, the jury was told.
When Kakad, who lived in Arizona in the US, flew out to see Patel in June 2012, her mother wanted to "check him out" before she met him in person, the court heard.
Kuntal said she respected her mother's views. "I knew she was just frightened and we didn't have much family support and I knew that as a mother she was worried about me," she said.
Patel denies trying to kill her mother, who sits on the bench at Thames magistrates court, and acquiring a biological agent or toxin.
She has pleaded guilty to two counts of attempting to acquire a biological agent or toxin last December.
Last December, she allegedly bought a deadly dose of abrin off the "dark web" which she slipped into her mother's drink to kill her. But her mother survived.
'Breaking Bad' follows the story of chemistry teacher Walter White, who turns to cooking crystal meth with a former student after being diagnosed with cancer.