Emergency services carry a person out of McDonald's in an Auckland suburb.
Video / Hayden Woodward
Mitesh Kumar was jailed for eight and a half years for attempted murder after attacking his ex-wife.
Kumar lured his ex-wife to Mt Roskill McDonald’s, where he repeatedly slashed her throat.
Justice Neil Campbell highlighted Kumar’s premeditation and extreme violence, rejecting any discount for remorse.
A soon-to-be divorcee who lured his former partner to a McDonald’s with a promise of letting her see their children - only to attempt to blackmail her with an intimate photo before lunging at her with a knife, repeatedly slashing her throat - briefly wiped away tears todayas he was confronted by his deeply traumatised victim.
“I never imagined that the father of my children would brutally abuse me to the point of ending my life,” Mitesh Kumar’s ex-wife said as he returned to the High Court at Auckland for sentencing.
“I now live with trust issues, knowing that the person I thought I could trust the most in the world could inflict such pain and suffering and continues to do. Even though I know he’s in jail and can’t get me, he’s taken away my security and sense of safety.”
A short time later, Justice Neil Campbell ordered Kumar, 46, to serve a sentence of eight and a half years imprisonment for attempted murder. He scoffed at the defendant’s seeming inability to take responsibility for his actions and his description of the attack as him having gotten “carried away”.
“That is a shocking understatement, Mr Kumar,” the judge said.
Kumar and his wife had been married for 18 years but had been separated for almost a year before the attack in January. The victim was told her children would be at the restaurant if she agreed to meet the defendant around 8 that evening.
Mitesh Kumar appears for sentencing at Auckland High Court. Photo / Michael Craig
“At about 7.48pm the defendant received a call from the complainant as she approached the restaurant, as she could see that her children were not present with him,” according to the summary of facts agreed to by Kumar. “The defendant advised the complainant that the children were across the road and convinced her to come in and wait for them inside.”
Kumar had a utility knife with a retractable blade in his pocket. He took it out and placed it under his leg in anticipation of her arrival, documents state.
After asking her to accept a lower divorce settlement offer, which she said she didn’t want to talk about, he tried another tactic: showing her a year-old nude photo of her on his phone, threatening to release it if the offer wasn’t accepted.
“The complainant told the defendant that she was leaving and stood up to attempt to leave,” documents state. “The defendant stood up with her, removed the knife from under his leg, lunged forward at the complainant, grabbed her with his left hand and used his right thumb to extend the blade of the knife.
“Using the knife, the defendant slashed across the left side of the complainant’s neck/throat three times.”
Kumar then pushed her over the table, breaking it, then again into a corner where she was trapped before continuing the brutal attack.
The woman was stabbed at McDonald's on Stoddard Rd, Mt Roskill, on January 11 last year. Photo / Hayden Woodward
“The defendant stood over the complainant as she struggled to get back up, grabbed her by the hair and continued to slash at the left side of her neck/throat with the knife three more times,” the summary of facts states. “McDonald’s staff and members of the public approached the defendant and pled with him to stop.”
Kumar held the bystanders at bay by pointing the knife at them, saying: “Don’t stop me! Just stay away!”
He continued to slash the victim’s neck.
“You’ve wrecked my life,” he told her in Gujarati. “You’ve lost my kids.”
The attack endured, with brief pauses, for almost eight minutes. At one point he stopped due to a “mechanical failure” with the knife but resumed after adjusting the blade. At another point, he paused to replace the blade before resuming his focus on her neck. At yet another point, he paused briefly only to catch his breath before resuming.
“I want her to die, you can call the police,” Kumar said as bystanders again attempted to stop him.
Finally, the attack was stopped when a member of the public intervened with a chair.
The victim’s parents described the horror of finding their daughter in the hospital.
“I was overwhelmed by the sheer brutality of what had been done to her,” her mother said in a victim impact statement. “The image of her lying there struggling to survive is burned into my memory.”
The victim’s father added: “My daughter was not a piece of meat to be cut numerous times.”
The couple, who are shopkeepers in Fiji, have had to stay in New Zealand over the past year as they cared for their daughter - unable at first to do things as simple as dressing herself, brushing her teeth and taking a shower. It was three months before she could hold a spoon. In the meantime, the woman has endured multiple surgeries. Another one is scheduled for this week.
“My daughter was simply trying to move on and find peace, yet she was met with violence instead,” the mother said. “No one should have to go through what [she] has.”
Mitesh Kumar appears for sentencing in the High Court at Auckland for the attempted murder of his ex-wife at a Mt Roskill McDonald's restaurant. Photo / Michael Craig
As Kumar’s ex gave her own victim impact statement, she thanked bystanders, emergency responders and surgeons for saving her life. Kumar had initially proposed to meet her in private that day, she noted.
“Should this have occurred, I would not be standing here today,” she said.
Kumar bowed his head for most of the hearing but seemed to briefly wipe away tears as his former partner described how his act of brutality had traumatised their children.
“You and you alone are responsible to the damage to your own children,” she said.
She also warned the judge that her continuing anxiety and nightmares are not unwarranted.
“I believe no matter how long he stays in prison he will seek to harm me upon his release,” she said. “He will focus on revenge and won’t be happy until he’s taken my life.”
Crown prosecutor Robin McCoubrey didn’t disagree, noting that the defendant’s “letter of remorse” didn’t seem to show remorse - instead continuing to blame his ex for his woes. McCoubrey emphasised that “an acrimonious divorce provides no mitigation whatsoever” when determining a sentence. The judge agreed.
Attempted murder carries a maximum sentence of 14 years’ imprisonment. Kumar pleaded guilty to the charge in July.
Defence lawyer Ron Mansfield KC asked for a starting point of 10 years’ imprisonment, with further discounts for his early guilty plea, remorse and his previous good character.
“He’s not an inherently bad man despite the vicious nature of this assault,” Mansfield said, adding that his client could be safely released back into society after intensive rehabilitation and counselling.
Justice Campbell said the upper end of the scale was necessary for Kumar’s sentence given the pre-meditation, the extreme unprovoked violence, the seriousness of the injuries, the use of a lethal weapon, the focus on his victim’s head and throat and the breach of trust involving the mother of his children. Given those features, denunciation and deterrence were important, he said.
He settled on a starting point of 11 years before allowing a standard 20% discount for his guilty plea and an unusually modest 2.5% discount for previous good character and rehabilitative prospects. He rejected a discount for remorse.
He noted that in Kumar’s un-remorseful remorse letter, he also suggested that he put his hands in his pockets during the meeting with his wife and coincidentally realised he had a knife. That was not believable and was inconsistent with the summary of facts he agreed to, Justice Campbell said.
If Kumar wants to be released from prison early, his attitude will have to change, the judge said.
“It’s going to be a matter for you to persuade the Parole Board that you are experiencing remorse.”
Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.
Sign up to The Daily H, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
