Love triangle murder: Wife planned Davender Singh murder but backed out - lawyer

A woman planned with her lover to kill her abusive husband but had pulled out before the hit took place, her lawyer said.

Amandeep Kaur, 32, is on trial before the High Court at Auckland charged with murdering 35-year-old Davender Singh, who was partially decapitated as they sat in their car on the side of a south Auckland road on August 7 last year.

Her lover, 27-year-old Gurjinder Singh, is jointly charged.

Defence counsel John Anderson accepted Kaur might have acted deplorably at times but that did not make her guilty of murder.

"Some, if not all of you, might be appalled at the actions of Amandeep Kaur. She cheated on her husband, joined in for a time on her lover's plan to kill him and when spoke to by police she lied," he told the jury in closing.

"She fell in love with Gurjinder Singh ... while you might disapprove, adultery is not a crime."

The defendants, who worked at Sistema Plastics in Penrose, had an affair which lasted several months before their spouses found out three weeks before Davender Singh's death.

The Crown said the pair planned the murder so they could be together and it allegedly materialised when Gurjinder Singh followed the couple in their car as they left work and launched an attack when they pulled over on Norman Spencer Drive.

Mr Anderson said Davender Singh had regularly beaten his wife since discovering her infidelity and her frustration led to her initially joining the plan to kill him.

Secret handwritten notes exchanged between the duo showed Gurjinder Singh was the person "driving it", he said.

In another note found by police, which Mr Anderson said was written the day before the incident, Kaur ends things.

"Can we finish everything. Too hard my love," she wrote.

"He became enraged by Amandeep's rejection of him," Mr Anderson said.

Kaur's lawyer described Gurjinder Singh as "fiery" and "hot-tempered" and made his mind up that if he could not have his lover, no one would.

Forensic evidence also pointed squarely at him, Mr Anderson said.

There was only Gurjinder Singh's fingerprint on the knife, his gloves were "sodden" with blood, his bloody clothes were found by police at his house and his blood was found in the car.

He said Kaur tried to protect her husband during the attack rather than holding him down as the Crown suggested.

"The frenzied cuts and slashes made to Davender Singh were far more likely to be made by a man than a woman," Mr Anderson said.

"There's no evidence Amandeep Kaur was physically involved in the murder."

Justice Graham Lang will summed up the case this afternoon.

The jury have now begun deliberating.