A mother who killed her five-year-old daughter by knifing her 15 times in the throat and chest before turning the blade on herself has been sent to a mental unit.
Sutha Sivanantham, 36, has been left with a colostomy bag and spent several months in hospital after stabbing herself in the stomach at her home in Mitcham.
She stabbed her daughter Sayagi 15 times in the bedroom of their south London flat in June last year, the Old Bailey heard, with two wounds puncturing the little girl’s heart.
The mother had been complaining of mystery ailments for almost a year and her husband said fear of the virus and lockdown restrictions pushed her over the edge.
Sainsbury’s employee Suganthan was working when he received the call that his wife had killed their daughter.
He sobbed loudly in the dock as his impact statement was read to the court.
‘I believe Covid restrictions may have had a negative effect on her wellbeing,’ Mr Sivanantham said. ‘She took the restrictions seriously and was petrified about catching the virus.’
The court heard Sutha spoke no English and had been living in the UK since 2006 after an arranged marriage with her husband. He described her as ‘a very good mother’.
In the autumn of 2019, she started to complain of mysterious pains and went to A&E several times. By the summer of the following year, she complained of dizziness and weight loss as she plummeted to just seven and a half stone.
‘The defendant had developed a morbid concern she was suffering from undiagnosed serious illness,’ said prosecutor Bill Emlyn-Jones. ‘She appears to have become convinced that she was going to die.’
Hospital tests revealed Sutha had been infected with Covid 19 at some point.
‘The night before the incident, she had specifically asked her husband if he would take care of the children in the event of her death,’ Mr Emlyn-Jones said.
‘On the morning of 30th June 2020, she asked her husband not to go to work, but he explained that he had to go, leaving the defendant at home.’
Sutha phoned friends during the day complaining about her health but they were not concerned. At around 4pm neighbours rushed to the flat after hearing the sound of screaming and found a ‘bloodbath’.
‘They found the defendant on the floor, with a serious stab wound to her abdomen,’ Mr Emlyn-Jones said. ‘Sayagi, who was lying on the bed, had been stabbed several times in the neck, chest and abdomen.
‘A knife was seen embedded in Sayagi’s shoulder, which fell out when she was moved to be treated on the instructions of the 999 operators.’
Mother and daughter were both taken to hospital by air ambulance but Sayagi was later pronounced dead.
NHS worker and neighbour Elsa Gonzales, 47, described hearing screaming and crying coming from the property, where the family from Sri Lanka lived.
When she arrived with her sister – Riza Marfilla, 55 – she discovered the woman wearing only her underwear.
She said: ‘I went next door and saw the lady on the floor covered in blood. She had what looked like a knife wound in her stomach.
‘I was on the phone to 999 and I tried to see if the young girl was likely to survive but she looked lifeless – there was so much blood everywhere.’
Sayagi was attending a local Tamil class to learn her parent’s language, sources close to the family told MailOnline.
Paying tribute to the young girl, Ms Gonzales said: ‘She’s so smart and so tough. She was always fighting with the boys when she played.
‘She’s always smiling at me. She was such a good girl. My heart breaks for her.’
Another neighbour Riza Marfilla, 55, said: ‘It’s so sad. She likes Bruno – my dog. Whenever she would see him, she would be shouting ”Bruno! Bruno!”.
‘She is such a sweet child.’
In hospital Sivanantham told a doctor how terrified she was that she was about to die. ‘The defendant told the doctor she had been worried what would happen to her child if anything happened to her and thought her daughter would not be able to live without her,’ Mr Emlyn-Jones said.
‘She also said that on the day of the murder she had felt as if she was asleep and dreaming; she had known she was hurting herself ‘but I didn’t realise I was hurting her’.
‘The defendant was charged on 11th September 2020 and two letters were seized.
‘In one of these she again asks for forgiveness and says she still doesn’t ‘know what happened to me on that day’.’
