An evil slaver has continued to brand her elderly victim a liar in a wicked attempt to spare her even longer behind bars.
Kumuthini Kannan was found guilty in April of holding the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, captive as a slave for eight years inside their Glen Waverley home, east of Melbourne.
She was sentenced in July over the ‘repugnant crime’ to eight years behind bars, with a non-parole period of just four years.
The callous slaver now faces up to 25 years imprisonment over claims she attempted to pervert the course of justice in that trial by intimidating her victim to drop the case.
Kumuthini Kannan during her last day of freedom in July. She had remained a remorseless slaver up until sentence
Kumuthini Kannan was found guilty of being a slave driver. She would slash her servant with a knife if she was not satisfied with her work, a jury heard
Kandasamy Kannan had enjoyed months of additional freedom even after being found guilty. He had used his children repeatedly to obtain release. He remains behind bars
Kumuthini appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Friday from prison where she live-streamed into a link with her former captive.
The elderly woman had not been required to give her evidence in-person during the previous trial.
The court heard her cruel jailer allegedly made two calls to her while free on bail last year in a brazen attempt to avoid justice.
Identifying herself as ‘the interpreter’, police claim Kumuthini told the woman she worked within the court and would be watching her every move.
In one call, police allege Kumuthini told the 67-year old, who was living in an aged care facility, that police and lawyers were not to be trusted.
‘You may think you will leave here with money, but you won’t. You will never see your daughter. These people will not do anything for you,’ the woman was told.
‘If you listen to police, you will never leave Australia. You will stay here until you die.’
Police allege Kumuthini told her former slave her evidence was incorrect and tried to persuade her to remain silent about her years of torment.
During her Supreme Court of Victoria trial, which dragged on for weeks, the court heard Kannan had been the mastermind behind the evil plot to keep the woman as a slave.
Her husband Kandasamy was jailed for six years for his part in the shocking crime.
The couple were found guilty of intentionally possessing and using the woman as a slave between July 2007 and July 2015.
Their identities had been hidden for years after they successfully argued for a court-imposed gag order.
They had wanted to protect their young children from the shame of being the spawn of devilish slavers.
Kumuthini had been painted as the cruel slave keeper, who dominated over her pathetic husband and their slave.
Police believed Kumuthini Kannan (pictured) had held her captive like ‘Harry Potter’
Kumuthini Kannan had been accused of throwing things when unhappy with her slave
Kumuthini Kannan and her husband Kandasamy will leave their children orphans after being found guilty of slavery
On Friday, the court heard she spoke to her victim on the phone for more than an hour on one occasion.
The woman, who claimed she had been tortured by Kumuthini while in captivity, said she did not know how to hang up the phone.
‘I was screaming,’ she later told police. ‘I was overwhelmed.’
Kumuthini allegedly told the woman she was doomed to fail should she enter the witness box to testify against her.
‘None of your evidence is good. It’s not going to work … If you go to court you will not give any evidence,’ she allegedly said.
The court heard Kumuthini told the woman she would never return to her homeland in India should she proceed with the trial.
Speaking through an interpreter, the woman said only her former captor would say the vile things the person on the other end of the phone said about her family in India.
‘It was Kumuthini,’ she said time and time again.
Inside the bGlen Waverley house where Kandasamy and Kumuthini Kannan enslaved a woman
The elderly victim claimed she was unable to leave the home unless it was with one of her slavers
The woman was found close to death in a pool of her own urine inside the Glen Waverley home
The slave had been the couple’s ‘dirty secret’ – a vulnerable one they exploited.
She had only been discovered after she collapsed inside the couple’s home in 2015 in a pool of her own urine and weighing just 40kg.
Kumuthini – who was previously branded a compulsive liar – had left her on the bathroom floor to take her children to a concert before finally calling triple zero on her return.
Doctors described her victim as ‘fading away’.
Traumatised and with serious medical conditions, she spent more than two months in hospital recovering – and for much of that time nobody knew her real identity due to a ‘litany of lies’ told by the couple.
The jury heard Kumunthini had beaten her slave with a frozen chicken, tossed boiling water on her legs, splashed hot tea in her face and poured curries over her head.
The couple had been accused of working their slave near to death and allowed her just an hour of sleep for years at a time.
Kumunthini Kannan pleaded not guilty to her latest charges on Friday and will now face a County Court of Victoria trial.
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