By Lucy Caulkett-
An East London pensioner who beat her wheelchair-bound husband to death with a wooden pole has been cleared of murder after suffering years of abuse has been cleared of his murder.
Packiam Ramanathan admitted killing her disabled husband Kanagusabi Ramanathan, 76, whom she said subjected her to years of abuse the Old Bailey heard.The 73-year-old from East Ham, East london pleaded guilty to manslaughter, which she said was sparked from years of bullying and abusive behaviour during their 35-year long marriage.
The Old Bailey had heard how the couple had an arranged marriage in 1983 and had fled Sri Lanka in the civil war. On September 21 last year, paramedics found former shopkeeper Mr Ramanathan dead in his bedroom after the defendant told her neighbour she had hit him.
He had suffered serious head injuries and multiple wounds to the body and neck, with other injuries to his arms and hands from trying to fend off the blows. A blood-stained wooden stick was found in a cupboard in the hall of the couple’s flat
The Old Bailey heard that the couple had several arguments about money and the defendant also became very angry after finding out her husband had written to Sri Lankan police accusing her brother of fraud and theft.
She said: “There is no dispute that the person who used that stick to cause those injuries which killed him was his wife, and the prosecution case is that there can be also no doubt that she did so intending, at the least, to cause him really serious harm and that he was unlawfully killed as a result, that is, that she murdered him.”
The defendant claimed to have lost of control after suffering years of bullying and abusive behaviour by her husband. She said her late husband threw sticks at her and subjected her to years of verbal abuse, even accusing her of having an affair with the fishmonger.
Ramanathan told the court: “It was like I was in a trance. I hit him. I do not know. I did not know what I was doing. I could not feel this. I remember him saying don’t hit me. I remember I hit him.
“I lost control at that time. I did not plan anything. I’m not a person who would do such a thing. I don’t know how I did it. For me I still feel like somebody else did it.”
Mitigting for Ramanthan, Stephen Kamlish QC, said his client had not intentionally killed her husband. He said that if she had wanted to kill her diabetic husband she could have simply given him a bigger dose of insulin and “no one would have known”.
He said: “Him dying in the night would not have been unexpected. It’s what she could have done.
“The fact it was done in the way it was – with a stick – means there was no planning. The fact it was done with such severity is evidence of loss of control.
“She is frail, she is slight, she is getting on for anorexic weight. It’s hard to beat someone to death with a stick when you are that size.”
He had urged jurors to acquit her of murder, saying: ”After the hell of this trial, the hell of 36 years of abuse, you can show what you think of this prosecution and do the right thing by coming to a very fast verdict.”
Ramanathan was cleared of murder after a short deliberation, leaving her husband’s family to pick up the pieces of the abuse. Domestic violence can sometimes end like this were the abuser is the one who ends up six feet under, but it is not in every case where the victim of abuse who kills the abuser escaped a heavy jail sentence.