2.15pm - by GREGG WYCHERLEY
A Hamilton woman who tried to kill her estranged lover by setting him alight in his car last June has been sent to prison for five years.
Armajeet Kaur Singh, a 28-year-old mother, was sentenced in the High Court at Hamilton to five years in prison on a charge of attempted murder, and two years prison on a charge of arson. The sentences are to be served concurrently.
Singh had been working in Swaran Singh's (no relation) vegetable shop when the two began an affair.
She became enraged when Mr Singh tried to break off what he called a "very minor" sexual relationship.
Refusing to accept his decision, an emotional Singh pursued her ex-lover, phoning him, sending love letters at first, and then hate-mail.
On June 21 she called him to arrange a final meeting at a Hamilton park.
As he sat in his car she doused him with a bucket of petrol, set it alight and fled the scene. With his arms, face and thighs on fire, Mr Singh jumped from his burning car into a nearby puddle.
He suffered burns to his face and legs, and serious burns to his hands.
Singh's lawyer, Philip Morgan, asked the court to exercise mercy and compassion on the grounds that she had three children of less than three years of age, and suffered from a mental disorder.
Mr Morgan said four psychiatrists had examined Singh, and although they had not all come to the same conclusion, it was agreed she had been suffering some form of mental disorder for which she had been taking medication.
She had been prescribed anti-depressive medication but had stopped taking it before the attack was carried out, he said.
But prosecutor Ross Douch said that while it was conceded the prisoner had suffered from bouts of depression, she was in full control when she carried out the attack.
"The prisoner had made her plan and she put it into place.
"It was clearly premeditated and had been in the planning just hours before."
Mr Douch asked for a stern sentence to express society's abhorrence of her intention to make Mr Singh a "human torch".
"She left the man...walked to her car and calmly walked away.
"That is despicable conduct."
Justice Paul Heath said the case was a tragic one, with wide repercussions for the prisoner, and her young children who would be left motherless for the term of her sentence.
"I have found the decision on your sentence troubling," he said.
"I do not want to hurt your family any more than they have been hurt already."
But he said the sentence must reflect the gravity of the offence and the fact that the prisoner had planned to kill Mr Singh.
"It is an unequivocal fact that you intended to take a human life.
"You have brought shame on yourself through your actions, you have brought shame on your family, you have brought shame on the wider Sikh community."
He was satisfied that Singh would not reoffend, but could find little evidence of mitigating factors.
"You acted in a deliberate and callous fashion...such conduct is to be condemned in the strongest possible terms.
"Justice Heath asked that Singh be imprisoned near her family and that she continue to receive psychiatric treatment in prison.
Throughout the three-day trial, Singh's lawyer, Philip Morgan, said it was not disputed that his client had set the fire, but her intention was to destroy the car, not kill Mr Singh.
But prosecutor Ross Douch argued, and the jury agreed in just two hours, that Singh had intended to kill.
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