A pregnant mother stabbed her two eldest children to death and tried to murder her six-month old baby while suffering from severe post-natal depression, a court heard yesterday.
Sasikala Navaneethan, 37, told police she tried to kill all her children and herself because she was stuck in a loveless marriage and was often beaten by her husband Navarajah, it was said.
The Sri Lankan-born housewife – who entered into an arranged marriage in 1998 – thought her 39-year-old husband was having affairs with two other women.
Feeling trapped, isolated and mentally unstable, Navaneethan fed her children alcohol and lay them side by side in age order before slitting their throats with a knife.
She then tried to kill herself by slashing her wrists with a knife and drinking rat poison.
Navaneethan then dialled 999 and told the operator: ‘My husband beats me. Therefore we do not want to live so we are going.’
When the emergency services arrived, they discovered the lifeless bodies of her eldest two children – Shanjayan, five, and Sharani, four.
Her youngest daughter Trishana was rushed to hospital with serious knife wounds to her neck, but against the odds she survived.
Navaneethan left a hand-written note in May last year claiming her husband had carried out the attack.
It read: ‘The attempted murder of me and my children was done by my husband. He was having a clandestine affair with two persons. I screamed and there was no-one helping me.’
However, she later told police she kill her children and tried to kill her baby because her husband was beating her and because he was having an affair, the court heard.
She told them: ‘I just want to die. Can you shoot me? I murdered them. I killed my children. My husband been kicking me. I don’t want him and I don’t want the kids.’
The Old Bailey heard how she was living a miserable existence in the £350,000 family home in Carshalton, Surrey.
During the day her husband often worked from 6.30am to 11pm at his convenience store nearby. He was struggling to find customers because a new bypass had taken away much of the passing trade.
Stuck at home caring for three young children, she felt increasingly isolated and worried.
But because of ‘cultural expectations’ she felt unable to leave the marriage or tell her GP what was really wrong with her, the court heard.
Psychiatrists have since diagnosed her as suffering from a depressive illness which caused her to suffer hallucinations and delusions.
It emerged that Navaneethan had suffered a mental breakdown when she was a teenager and had tried to kill herself at the age of 18.
The effect of the horrific acts of violence and destruction she witnessed during the Sri Lankan civil war had tipped her over the edge.
After arriving in Britain in 1999 to live with her new husband, her mental illness appeared to have stabilised. However, soon after the birth of her third child she began to hear voices every day, telling her to kill herself and her children.
She later told psychiatrists she had been suffering from depression after Trishana’s birth and was having delusions.
The Common Serjeant, Judge Brian Barker, told Navaneethan hers was ‘a profoundly sad and tragic case’.
‘It seems to me your turmoil and your actions are virtually impossible for an outsider to understand,’ he said.
‘This is the case of a sick person who continues to be sick now. You need treatment rather than punishment.’
Navaneethan gave birth to another daughter six months later while being treated in a secure hospital. Both surviving daughters are now being cared for by their father.
David Waters QC, prosecuting, said Navaneethan’s claims of abuse were ‘grossly exaggerated and assumed delusional proportions.’ However, the court heard that her alleged abuse at the hands of her husband was supported by Navaneethan’s sister who said she had seen him hit her with a broom.
She had told a doctor that on the day of the killings her husband had beaten her with hair straighteners because she gave him Horlicks instead of tea at 6am.
Detectives found no evidence that her husband was cheating on her and doctors found no marks on her body where she claimed her hit her.
Navaneethan was sent to a secure mental hospital for an indefinite period, after pleading guilty to two offences of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility and guilty of the attempted murder of baby Trishana.
David Etherington QC, defending, said cultural expectations may have resulted in Navaneethan being unable to tell her GP she was mentally unwell.
‘She believed there was no point in her living any longer and she could not leave the children with her husband,’ he said.
He said Navaneethan has responded to medication and was filled with terrible guilt about what she had done.
RELATED ARTICLES
- EVs pollute 1850 times more than Fossil Fuel cars according to new study
- UK Warns that China is Preparing for Total Nuclear War with the West
- Jacob Rothschild Dies At Age 87
- UK Government-Funded Study Found Virtually No Dental Benefit From Fluoridation
- UK Elderly Couple Ordered in a Council Letter to Sell Their House as its Needed to House Migrants
Loading ...
