Shocking new video has emerged of the squalid room where a frail grandmother was enslaved, scolded with boiling tea and beaten with a frozen chicken over eight years by a vile woman and her twisted husband.
Kandasamy, 57, and Kumuthini Kannan, 53, were jailed for six and eight years respectively in the Supreme Court of Victoria on Wednesday for keeping the 67-year-old woman as a slave in their Glen Waverly home between 2007 and 2015.
The woman, who is now living in an aged care facility in Melbourne and cannot be identified, was completely emaciated and lying in a puddle of urine when she was discovered collapsed inside the couple’s home.
She doesn’t speak English and told police through a translator that she was barred from sleeping beyond one hour at a time, and forced to cook, clean, and look after the children for 23 hours a day.
On Wednesday night, A Current Affair released police footage showing inside the house of horrors where the elderly woman was forced to live on a wage of just $3.39 per day.
Pictured: The room where an elderly woman was kept as a slave in for eight years between 2005 and 2015
In the room, there was a bunk bed, ironing board and boxes of food. The woman was found emaciated in a puddle of urine
The room where she ate and slept for eight years resembled a storage cupboard with a few boxes of food, an unmade bunk bed and an iron in the corner.
Suits, coats, and ties could be seen hanging in the cupboard, which were undoubtedly not hers, along with piles of bags heaped on the top mattress.
The woman travelled from India to Melbourne with the couple in 2005 after agreeing to be their housekeeper, as she had done three times before.
But when her passport expired in 2007, it was confiscated by the husband and wife and she became a slave.
Justice John Champion accepted the pair had not initially planned to use her as a slave, but had embraced the idea for a ‘substantial’ amount of time.
Khandasamy (left) and Kumuthini Kannan spend their last moments together before she was sent to jail
Pictured: The house where the elderly woman was kept as a slave for eight years
He described the couple’s offending as ‘repugnant, degrading and a gross breach of human rights’.
The jury heard Kumunthini – who was labelled the ringmaster of the whole operation – 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.
Speaking to a federal agent, the former slave later outlined her years of misery in six recorded interviews.
‘(Kumuthini) be drinking hot coffee and then she will just, you know, pour it on my face … and then she will be grab the gravy and pour it on my head,’ the woman said.
Kumuthini Kannan and her husband Kandasamy will leave their children orphans after being found guilty of slavery
Kumuthini Kannan had been accused of throwing things when unhappy with her slave
Kandasamy Kannan faced his fate alone on Wednesday after his evil wife was locked up last month
‘She will say “curries not nice” and then she will just throw it on me.’
The woman was discovered after she collapsed inside the couple’s home.
Kumuthini – who Justice Champion 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.
She weighed just 40kg and had diabetes that had gone untreated for a long time.
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.
Police believed Kumuthini Kannan (pictured) had held her captive like ‘Harry Potter’
On Wednesday, the elderly woman did not appear in court and was not represented by anyone else – her slavers’ fate left unknown to her until otherwise notified.
She declined to provide a victim impact statement, declaring she had ‘said all she had to say’.
Had she tuned in, she would have heard no acknowledgement by Justice Champion of her claims of torture.
They had been claims he accepted could not be proven by the woman.
The Kannans had denied torturing their captive and remained remorseless and in denial right up until sentence.
In sentencing, Justice Champion accepted Kumunthini suffered depression which would make her time behind bars tougher.
Kandasamy Kannan had enjoyed months of additional freedom even after being found guilty. He had used his children repeatedly to obtain release. This time, his evil tactics failed
He also accepted the couple had both suffered ‘hardship’ because their wicked behaviour had impacted negatively on their children.
However, he condemned them for failing to accept responsibility for the crime.
‘Your primary focus appears to have been on yourselves … I am quite convinced you both believe you have done nothing wrong,’ Justice Champion said.
In taking into account all mitigating factors, the judge, who will now head into retirement, told the pair he would show them a ‘degree of mercy’.
‘You are both culpable through significant degrees, but not to the same extent … it could have been stopped by either of you at any time,’ Justice Champion said.