Kulwinder Singh acquitted of murdering wife Parwinder Kaur

Kulwinder Singh’s defence was that his wife had died in a tragic accident after she poured a cup of petrol on herself to ‘create a drama’.

 

Rail worker Kulwinder Singh wept in court today as a jury acquitted him of murdering his wife by setting her on fire.

Mr Singh’s defence was that his wife, Parwinder Kaur, 32, had died in a tragic accident when she poured a cup of petrol on herself to “create a drama” but did not realise the “wool” cardigan she had worn on a hot December day to protect herself from the flames was really made of highly combustible acrylic.

Neighbours told the court they heard a bloodcurdling scream before seeing Ms Kaur engulfed in flames and her husband frantically trying to pat them out in the driveway.

Kulwinder Singh (centre) arrives at the Supreme Court in Sydney. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Joel Carrett

But the court heard she had wrapped a towel around her head to protect the long hair she had washed and loved and to protect her face. Her hair was in a 51cm braid which was untouched.

In the DVD player of the couple’s Rouse Hill home was a movie called Gadar which was about a woman with beautiful hair whose family was in dispute with her husband. Her father accidentally shot her and everyone reconciled around her hospital bed and “everyone is happy”.

Singh, who married Ms Kaur in 2005, had pleaded not guilty to killing his wife in December 2013. It was four years before he was charged.

Singh’s defence counsel Margaret Cunneen SC had told the jury that the film “bore a striking resemblance to the happy if dramatic ending that (Ms Kaur) craved.”

Ms Cuneen said “science doesn’t lie” and there no forensic evidence linking Singh to his wife’s death.

She said the evidence pointed not to murder, but to Ms Kaur setting herself alight “with much greater consequences than she ever meant”.

Kulwinder Singh arrives at the Supreme Court in Sydney. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Joel Carrett

Singh’s fingerprints and DNA were not on the petrol can, on the lighter or in the laundry of their Rouse Hill home where Ms Kaur set herself on fire.

The only prints on the can were 12 “perfectly formed fingerprints” of Ms Kaur. The court heard there was no evidence of anyone wiping their prints off the items.

Singh did not smell of petrol.

As she fought for her life, police repeatedly asked her if her husband had done it but she never implicated him.

When she called Triple O, she said her husband had nearly killed her but she did not say he had poured petrol on her, she was calm and had time to spell her name and spell her address. The defence said it was not a genuine call.

The petrol can had been neatly returned to a laundry cupboard with a litre and a quarter of fuel still in it.

“Is that someone who is so incredibly cruel and in a murderous rage … does a murderer replace the petrol can and put it in the cupboard with so much still in it?” Ms Cunneen had told the jury.

There was five to 15 minutes between the tea cup of petrol being poured on Ms Kaur and the fire being lit.

Margaret Mary Cunneen SC with Kulwinder Singh at the Supreme Court. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Joel Carrett

“This is a long time,” Ms Cunneen told the jury.

“If someone poured petrol on you, even just a tea cup full, would you hang around to see if he or she was going to do something with a cigarette lighter in five or ten minutes or would you run?

“This lady was able to run when she was on fire. Why couldn’t she run out when she got the petrol on her? But she didn’t. Why didn’t she scream the house down when she had the petrol on her?”

She said it was an “unspeakably tragic accident” and that Ms Kaur had not intended to kill herself.

The prosecution had pressed ahead with a retrial after a jury last year was unable to reach a verdict and Singh’s lawyers submitted no-bill application to the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions Lloyd Babb.

The prosecution case was that DNA and fingerprint experts said some people can touch things without leaving fingerprints or DNA, as must have been the case with Singh.

They alleged that Ms Kaur had wanted a divorce and Singh set her on fire after she stopped contributing to the mortgage and gave money to her student brother. She had set up her own separate bank account.

On a visit to India in October or November 2013, Singh had allegedly told his sister-in-law that if his wife wanted a divorce he would not agree, saying 'we kill people and nobody can find out'.

“people can touch things without leaving DNA.