By Georgina Mitchell | SMH | Australia |
More than seven years after his wife died in a petrol-fuelled blaze at their Sydney home, a visibly relieved Kulwinder Singh walked out of court for a final time, having been acquitted of her murder.
“I am very happy, thank you,” Mr Singh said on Tuesday, flanked by a crowd of supporters.
The 42-year-old had faced trial in the NSW Supreme Court accused of killing Parwinder Kaur, 32, by setting her on fire at their Rouse Hill home in Sydney’s north-west on the afternoon of December 2, 2013. He pleaded not guilty.
A neighbour heard a scream just after 2pm and looked out the window to see Ms Kaur running down her driveway engulfed in flames, with Mr Singh behind her making a motion with his hands as though he was trying to pat her out.
Ms Kaur suffered full-thickness burns to 90 per cent of her body and died in hospital the next day.
In a post-mortem examination she was found to have a three-centimetre bruise near her hairline and a contusion on her eyelid, which a forensic pathologist believed was caused by two different blunt-force impacts.
On Tuesday, a jury of five men and seven women found Mr Singh not guilty of murder after deliberating for about three hours. Mr Singh’s supporters gasped in the public gallery and began to cry, with Mr Singh hugging his barrister before walking to his supporters and hugging them.
It was the second trial Mr Singh faced, after his first trial ended in a hung jury in October 2019.
Read the full story, ‘Kulwinder Singh found not guilty of murdering wife by setting her on fire’ (SMH, 30 March 2021), here.
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