Latest news with #PatelFamily
BBC News
4 days ago
- General
- BBC News
Funeral held for 'remarkable' teenager after Beccles river death
Hundreds of people have attended the funeral of a teenager who died in a river. Nischay Patel, 14, had been swimming with friends in the river Waveney at Beccles Quay on the evening of 3 friends and fellow pupils of Sir John Leman High School in Beccles, where Nischay was a year 9 student, came together at the Waveney Memorial Park to pay their respects to the much-loved boy.A tribute from his parents, Ketan and Praptiben Patel, said: "He touched our lives with his unwavering kindness, gentle wisdom and boundless love." A private Hindu ceremony took place on Saturday morning, followed by a memories service and then his funeral, attended by everyone to pay their final Patel family, who own a newsagents in Beccles, said in a Facebook tribute: "This loss is unimaginable, and as we grieve, we hold close the love of our friends, family, and customers."Flowers and tributes were left at Beccles Quay and outside the family's shop. An online fund set up by two women who knew Nischay and his family has raised almost £14,000 to Bird and Layla Eales set up the appeal to help his family cover any lost income and funeral costs, with the remainder being used on life-saving equipment at the riverside - and a memorial bench. Richard Crozier, a former teacher at Notre Dame High School in Norwich and who owns a shop adjacent to the family's shop, said: "It was immediately obvious that Nischay had a spirit, a kind of life force, which is very rare in a young lad."He and his brother worked as a team, changing students' minds and attitudes in the most subtle of ways. "He was magical in his ability to communicate. A remarkable, remarkable boy."He said Nischay's popularity was evident in the numbers of young people who attended his funeral."He was a real leader of people," Mr Crozier added, "and would have been, I'm absolutely convinced, quite a national figure." Follow Suffolk news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
CBC
15-05-2025
- CBC
Prosecutors want 19-year and 10-year sentences for men convicted after family froze at Manitoba border
U.S. attorneys have filed sentencing submissions for two men convicted after a family froze to death while trying to walk across the Canada-U.S. border in Manitoba. A Minnesota jury found Steve Shand and Harshkumar Patel guilty of human-smuggling charges after the parents and two children from India were found in the snow in January 2022. The attorneys say in court documents that Patel is not remorseful and they're requesting he be sentenced to a little more than 19 years in prison. They also say Shand should be handed 10 years for conspiring with Patel to smuggle migrants into the United States at least five times through brutal winter conditions. Shand's lawyer, Aaron Morrison, says in a document that proposed sentence is "unduly punitive" and he's requesting a little more than two years in prison. A defence lawyer did not provide a document outlining a recommendation for Patel. They were convicted last November in the January 2022 deaths of the Patel family (who were not related to Harshkumar Patel). The frozen bodies of Jagdish Patel, 39, his wife, Vaishali, 37, their 11-year-old daughter, Vihangi, and their three-year-old son, Dharmik, were found in a snow-drifted Manitoba field just 12 metres from the U.S. border later on the morning of Jan. 19, 2022. The temperature that day was –23 C, but the wind chill made it feel like the –35 to –38 range. Shand was arrested near the border around the same time with other Indian nationals in the van he was driving. Harshkumar Patel was arrested in Chicago in February 2024 on charges of co-ordinating the smuggling and hiring Shand. The men are set to be sentenced May 28.
