Modern-day slavery Mr. Kandasamy & Mrs. Kumuthini Kannan- Jailed
Kumuthini Kannan and her husband Kandasamy were convicted in the Supreme Court of Victoria for keeping the lady as a slave at their Mount Waverley residence.
Local BangaloreTeam A Melbourne couple who kept a slave in their house for eight years until she was discovered weighing only 40kg has been sentenced to prison. A Melbourne couple was sentenced to prison for hiding a slave in their house for eight years. Kumuthini Kannan and her husband Kandasamy were convicted in the Supreme Court of Victoria for keeping the lady as a slave at their Mount Waverley residence.
Mrs. Kannan was sentenced to eight years in prison, while Mr. Kannan was sentenced to six years. Between 2007 and 2015, the 53-year-old woman and her 57-year-old husband were found guilty of knowingly holding and executing the ownership rights over a slave. Mrs. Kannan was compelled to contact paramedics after seeing the Indian grandmother shivering in a puddle of urine in July 2015. However, she only contacted an ambulance after dropping her children off at a school concert. When paramedics arrived, the sufferer weighed just 40kg and had a temperature of 28.5C(Hypothermic). She didn't have any teeth, and doctors found she had diabetes and septicemia.
“Her life was controlled largely in the privacy of your own home and care was taken by you to keep her true status from others in your community so that your dirty secret was maintained,” Justice John Champion said in his sentence.
The court claimed the couple had influence over nearly every area of the woman's life and criticised her for it. The victim spent about two months in the hospital recuperating and now resides in an elderly care home in Melbourne's suburbs at the age of 67. For the rest of her life, she will have to wear a catheter because of her poor health conditions. During most of her hospitalisation, no one knew the victim's actual name, as the pair maintained a "litany of lies" to block authorities from finding the truth.
When authorities questioned the couple at the request of the grandmother's family, they did not disclose the woman's details. The victim was "poor and uneducated, and defenseless," and there was a substantial power imbalance between her and the husband and wife. Her life was driven by financial hardship and deprivation. The victim arrived on a tourist visa for 30 days and was forced to cook, clean, and care for the couple's children for $3.39 per day. Slavery, he added, was a "crime against humanity," as well as "repugnant" and demeaning to the human condition. The grandmother testified before the jury that she had been beaten with a frozen chicken, had boiling water poured on her, had her hair chopped, and only had hours of sleep per night.
The lady, from Tamil Nadu state (India), had already worked twice for the couple before becoming enslaved on her third visit in 2007. Initially, an "agreement" was formed through her son-in-law for her to do domestic tasks and care for the couple's children in exchange for cash. The lady stated that she had no options in a taped police interview that was shown to the jury.
“What can I do, I'm helpless,” the victim stated in a videotaped interview. However, the lady did not offer a statement regarding the impact of the crime on the sentence and had "spoken everything she wanted to say," according to the court. The court condemned the couple's conduct, saying neither had expressed sorrow or regret for what they had done.
Mrs. Kannan was judged to be more morally responsible for the act, although the judge recognised she suffered from a serious mental condition and anxiety. According to Justice Champion, the lady was in command of the family and instructed the victim what to do, while her husband played a “peripheral and passive” role in the house.
He also considered Mr. Kannan's recent diagnosis of autism, as well as his depression following the jury's decision. Mr. Kannan will be eligible for release in three years, and his wife in four years.
