Father who slit his children's throats detained in hospital indefinitely

A father who slit the throats of his two young children has been been detained in hospital indefinitely.

Nadarajah Nithiyakumar, 41, who suffered from a delusional disorder, attacked his 19-month-old daughter Pavinya and three-year-old son Nigish at their home in Ilford, east London.

When his wife Nisanthini found the children after getting out of the shower, she said the shop worker told her: “I have cut the children off.”

He said: “If they get the children they will spoil them. That is the reason I did this to the children.”

When emergency services arrived, Pavinya was pronounced dead while Nigish was rushed to hospital. Nithiyakumar was also treated for knife wounds.

Nigish later died while Nithiyakumar was charged with murdering the children.

He told police he accepted killing his children with a knife on the afternoon of 26 April, having washed and watched TV beforehand, and said he was depressed.

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Customers at his shop had “upset him”, he said, though the court heard there was no evidence of troubles at work.

Nithiyakumar said he had thought about taking his own life but was worried it would “ruin the children’s lives and they would go off the rails”, the Old Bailey heard previously.

He later pleaded guilty to two counts of manslaughter by diminished responsibility.

Mrs Justice Cutts, sentencing on Thursday, said: “The consequences of your actions have been devastating.

“Two young and innocent children have had their futures and their lives taken from them by their own father.

“Your wife came out of the shower on what she considered to be a normal day to the most horrific scene imaginable.

“Her babies dead or dying on the bed, you with a knife in your hand.”

Prosecutor Duncan Atkinson QC previously told the court that “very experienced” psychiatrists said Nithiyakumar, who had no history of violence, suffered from a delusional disorder.

The court heard the defendant arrived in the UK from Sri Lanka in 1999 and was granted asylum.

He was put on anti-psychotic medication after coming to the attention of mental health services in 2010 but his treatment had lapsed.

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“It was one from which he had suffered for some time, for the best part of 10 years with very little indication and very little treatment,” Atkinson said, referring to an expert who said it was “remarkable” he carried on for as long as he did.

Atkinson added: “It was clear it was that disorder that led him to kill his children.”

In a victim impact statement, mother Nisanthini said: “I never expected this sort of incident to happen in my life and a mother to outlive her children.

“On the day of the incident I saw my children and what he did to them. I could not understand if it was dream or a nightmare, with those shocking images never leaving me.”

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