Grieving Giselle speaks out on 10th anniversary and reveals heartache never fades
BY SALLY HIND today as I do every day and sit with them. I’ve never missed one day.
“I just go up and talk to them and I know they’re with me. It’s so peaceful.
“I’ve got two windmills up there and they move round and I know that’s them speaking back to me.
“It’s so frightening to think Kalyanjee could be out there one day.
“They should never let him out. But he’ll never stop trying. It should be life for a life.”
Giselle, now 51, was estranged from her husband when he asked to take their children out for the day on May 3, 2008.
He took them to a beauty spot in the Campsie Fells, north of Glasgow, and told the boys they were going to play football. But he slashed Jay’s throat and turned his knife on Paul as they sat in his Mercedes car near Lennoxtown.
Kalyanjee burned their bodies and tried to set the car on fire with him inside it – but he survived.
He made a dictaphone recording before the killings, saying he had become a gambler and a drunk and telling the children: “We’re going to live together. Nobody can separate us now.”
Giselle constantly relives the last moments she spent with her children and has been driven to several suicide attempts as she has struggled to cope with her grief.
She said: “We were watching TV in bed the night before.
“Paul had a wee bed beside me and Jay got in the other side. We watched Jonathan Ross and I said, ‘Goodnight babies, I love you’.
“I remember Jay said to Paul, ‘Love you, goodnight my baby’ and Paul said, ‘But mummy he’s the baby and he’s calling me a baby’. That was my last night with them.
“The day I put them into his car and let them go was the hardest day of my life. People ask if I saw any signs but there weren’t any. He hid it so well.
“They took their footballs with them and wee drinks of juice. There was no inkling of what he was going to do.”
After the murders, Giselle could not bear to return to her home in Glasgow’s Royston, which was filled with memories of their life together.
She said: “I never get a rest, it’s constantly on my mind. I miss them so much and it’s hard to keep going.
“There were many times I didn’t want to be here. I’ve tried to take my own life a few times. I just wanted to be with my boys.
“But I can’t keep doing that to myself and am trying my hardest to get on with it.
“I still see a lot of doctors and speak to someone once a week. I don’t like to burden my family and prefer to have a wee cry to myself.
“I would rather talk to a stranger because I don’t want to upset anyone. It has affected everybody.
“My dad passed away at Christmas. It hurt him so badly. It’s just heartache after heartache.”
Giselle believes her ex-husband’s betrayal will stop her from moving on with another relationship in future.
She said: “I couldn’t trust a man again. I’m just not interested.
“You don’t realise what an impact one day can have on your life.
“My sister Katie’s boy is called Paul as well. He’s in his 30s now but was the spitting image of my Paul as a baby.
“I just picture my Paul and see him. You wonder what his hair would be like now? Would he still have the long curls at the back?
“They were such beautiful boys. My babies. They are too precious to forget about.”
Kalyanjee admitted murdering his sons and was jailed for life in 2009, with the judge ordering him to serve at least 21 years.
Two previous bids to have his conviction quashed due to diminished responsibility failed, with the killer claiming he was mentally ill when he confessed to murdering them.
A spokesman for the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission said a decision on his case was expected in the coming months.
He said: “We can confirm that we are actively reviewing the case relating to the individual after an application was received.”