Man jailed for cutting girl’s throat
Kidnapping of wife adds 18 months to sentence imposed on Rajesh Kumar
ASouth Auckland man who woke a young girl in the middle of the night then cut her throat has received a 10-and-a-half-year prison term.
Name suppression lapsed for Rosehill resident Rajesh Kumar, 53, when he appeared before Justice Geoffrey Venning in the High Court at Auckland yesterday.
He had earlier pleaded guilty to the attempted murder of the child and the kidnapping of his wife.
Kumar was sentenced to nine years for the attempted murder, to be served cumulatively with an 18-month sentence for the kidnapping. He was ordered to serve at least six years before he can apply for parole.
According to court documents, Kumar decided to attack the child after a night of drinking in December 2022. He entered the girl’s bedroom about 3am.
He led the child to a garage and told her to sit in a chair as he stood in front of her, at which point he said her father wasn’t who she thought it was. The child attempted to leave, but Kumar ordered her to stay.
“Without speaking further, the defendant walked behind [the girl] and stood behind her while she was sitting on the seat facing away from him,” court documents state. “He grabbed [the girl] by the hair and pulled her hair backwards, raising her chin and exposing her throat and neck. The defendant then used the knife to slit [her throat].”
The knife, with a 15cm blade, caused extensive damage but narrowly missed her carotid artery. She survived after emergency surgery.
As the child fell to the floor and began screaming, the defendant tried to muffle her screams by “aggressively” pushing her head down and shoving his fingers in her mouth. Others in the house, however, awoke and intervened. One adult son pulled him away from the child.
“I’m going to end her life also,” Kumar said as he then walked towards his sleeping wife, the knife still in hand.
Another adult son grabbed Kumar and didn’t let go until he was able to take the knife from his father, who then fled the house. Still wearing blood-stained clothes and with a rope wrapped around his neck, Kumar was later arrested without incident in Thames, Coromandel.
A week before the throat-cutting incident, Kumar had kidnapped his wife — threatening to stab her if she didn’t get in the vehicle in which he had been following after she left their house on foot. Their 20-year marriage had been deteriorating for years, court documents state.
The kidnapping ended after about six hours, when an adult son intervened.
“The defendant asked [his wife] and [his son] to keep this incident between them. They agreed and returned to the family home. Police were therefore not notified of this incident at that time.”
During yesterday’s sentencing, Crown prosecutor Bernadette Vaili argued a minimum term of imprisonment was necessary for Kumar both to hold him accountable for his conduct and to protect the community.
“It’s very clear that Mr Kumar takes no accountability for his offending.”
The defendant told a pre-sentence report writer he had no memory of the attack, having drunk heavily that night. But the “gratuitous” offending, Vaili said, was clearly “a series of calculated decisions”.
Defence lawyer Kelly-Ann Stoikoff characterised her client’s memory lapse not so much as an avoidance of responsibility as a fear of coming “face-to-face with a person he never wishes to see”.
Kumar, who came to New Zealand from Fiji about 2005, would likely be deported at the end of his sentence, the court was told.