Convicted woman sentenced to more jail time in modern-day slavery case in Australia

Kumuthini Kannan and her husband Kandasamy were earlier convicted for enslaving the victim, an Indian-origin Tamil woman, in her 60s.

A 55-year-old Melbourne woman, jailed for keeping an Indian-origin Tamil woman as a slave for eight years, has been sentenced to an additional two-and-a-half years for threatening the victim before she gave evidence in the criminal trial, police said.

Kumuthini Kannan and her husband Kandasamy Kannan were earlier convicted and sentenced for enslaving the victim, in her 60s, in their Mount Waverley home between 2007 and 2015, the police said in a statement on Saturday.

Kumuthini pleaded guilty to the offence of perverting the course of justice during an Australian Federal Police (AFP) slavery investigation and was sentenced on July 7 in the County Court of Victoria to an additional two years and six months imprisonment, the statement said.

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The Judge ordered that the sentence would start 18 months before the completion of her current sentence for the slavery offences.

Kumuthini was earlier sentenced to eight years imprisonment, with a non-parole period of four years for the slavery offences.

She will be eligible for parole in January 2026. Her husband was sentenced to six years imprisonment, with a non-parole period of three years.

They were convicted and jailed in 2021 after the police investigation established the couple had kept the victim as a slave for 8 years.

The federal police charged the couple in June 2016 with slavery offences and in 2020, while awaiting trial, Kumuthini threatened the victim and warned her not to give evidence during the court proceedings.

In February 2020, the AFP Human Trafficking Team charged the woman with attempting to pervert the course of justice, contrary to section 43 of the Crimes Act 1914 (Cth), and the matter was heard separately from the slavery proceedings.

According to a local media report, the exploitation of the elderly woman was able to take place because the woman's family was in India, she did not speak English, and her passport was taken away by the Kannans.