RAJINI Narayan hoped to save her marriage by burning her cheating husband's penis.Instead she killed her "god" and burned down their house.
This week the abused wife left the South Australian Supreme Court with a suspended six-year jail sentence for the manslaughter of 47-year-old Satish Narayan in 2008.
The judge's recognition of her remorse and suffering was polarising.
Some people wanted to know why she was being "let off", others didn't understand why she hadn't just left the man who verbally and physically abused her and others praised it as highlighting the complex problems of domestic abuse.
Judge John Sulan knew some people might think a suspended sentence was not a sentence at all.
"It is wrong to regard a suspended sentence as letting an offender walk free as if he or she has not been punished," he said as he imposed a three-year $1000 good behaviour bond.
But he said Narayan was unlikely to reoffend and still punished herself by fasting and sleeping on the floor for causing the death of a man she loved.
At her murder trial that convicted her of manslaughter last year, Narayan said she snapped and accidentally killed him.
She had only intended to save her marriage after finding out her husband was having an affair and may leave her.
She decided to burn the tip of his penis, to leave a red mark like the one he put on her forehead at their wedding.
Distressed and illogical, she decided it would bind him to her.
She took a beaker of petrol and a lit candle to their bedroom and told her husband she was going to purify his penis.
It was the first time in their marriage she'd had the courage to confront him, the judge said.
Instead he turned his back on her saying: "No, you won't, you bitch."
Enraged that he was spurning her attempt to fix their marriage she threw the candle and petrol on his back.
When she realised he'd caught fire she put him under the shower and waited with him as the house burned and the police and ambulance arrived.
He later died.
Sentencing her on Wednesday, Judge Sulan said she had suffered 22 years of physical and verbal abuse that began three months after her arranged Hindu marriage to a man she barely knew.
"When he was violent towards you, or when he criticised you, you thought that you deserved it because you were not pleasing him on many occasions," the judge said.
"You regarded him, in your description, as your god."
Her belief in her husband was shattered shortly before his death when she discovered he appeared to be supporting another woman and planned to run away with her.
"You became very distressed and confused, to you it was unthinkable that he should leave you after you had endured so much," the judge said.
"There is no doubt that at that point your thinking became totally unrealistic and muddled.
"For the first time in your life you had confronted your husband, had found the courage to be assertive to the person who had mistreated you for 20 years.
"His response was to treat you with disdain, dismiss you."
A forensic psychiatrist said she had a learned helplessness based upon cultural and personal beliefs.
It made her subservient to avoid further abuse and so that she would become worthy of his love and affection.
The psychiatrist said it was entirely consistent and reasonable that upon learning of her husband's love for another woman, after all the punishment she had been prepared to accept, Narayan would have been extremely distressed and increasingly angry.
Mr Narayan's family told the court they were extremely distressed by the loss of a person who they regarded as talented, caring, generous and loving.
The judge said it was clear he outwardly seemed a different man from the one whose children confirmed his abuse of them and his wife.
Two of Mr Narayan's three children said they all grieved for their father but the atmosphere at home was no longer hostile.
The judge set a non-parole period of three years and took the unusual step of suspending the sentence, saying Narayan had suffered already and sending her to jail might punish others more.
"It is clear from your children's evidence that you are the linchpin of the family," Justice Sulan said.
No comments:
Post a Comment