A man says his lover threatened to accuse him of murdering her husband, and asked him to get rid of a cell phone and a knife.
At the High Court in Auckland, from left: Amandeep Kaur, a translator, another translator and Gurjinder Singh. Photo: RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly
Gurjinder Singh has been giving evidence in his own defence in the High Court in Auckland, where he and Amandeep Kaur have denied charges of murdering Mrs Kaur's husband Davender Singh.
Davender Singh was found sitting in the driver's seat of his car on Norman Spencer Road in August last year. He had been stabbed to death and his throat had been cut.
Today, Gurjinder Singh told the court he had planned to confront Davender Singh after Mrs Kaur complained her husband was beating her.
He said, when he saw the other man's car parked on the side of the road, he pulled over and approached on foot. But, as he approached, he saw him covered in blood and struggling to breathe.
Gurjinder Singh said Mrs Kaur was seated in the front passenger seat and was crying.
She complained she had been repeatedly beaten by her husband and today she was angry, he said. She also asked for help and handed him a cell phone and a package to get rid of.
Initially he refused but, he said, Mrs Kaur threatened to call the police and blame him for killing her husband.
He said, when he got back to his car and turned the light on, he found a knife wrapped in a jacket Mrs Kaur had borrowed from him earlier that day.
He didn't think and just hid the items in his garage, he said.
Court told of previous approach
Earlier, Gurjinder Singh told the court he had approached Davender Singh about beating his wife on an earlier occasion.
Mrs Kaur repeatedly came to him with complaints about being beaten after their affair was exposed, he said - at one point, lifting a scarf around her neck to show him marks.
He said he told her husband she was complaining about being beaten and he responded by saying what he did to his wife was his business.
Meanwhile, the pair continued passing notes to each other, right up to the day when Davender Singh was killed.
They talked of love but they also showed plans to meet up.
The Crown's case is this was the pair planning where, when and how the murder would take place.
But Gurjinder Singh said the notes were actually plans for him to confront Davender Singh again about the violence he was inflicting on his wife. He was also worried about threats on his life and that of his parents, he said.
Meeting between couples
The court also heard about Gurjinder Singh's background, starting in a rural area in India where his parents grew crops.
He was married by age 20 and travelled to New Zealand with his wife, where he eventually got a job at a plastics factory in south Auckland.
It was there he met Mrs Kaur. The pair initially took meal breaks together before beginning an affair, which was cut short when Gurjinder Singh's wife found a mystery hotel bill in his bank statements and messages on Facebook.
Gurjinder Singh's wife arranged a meeting between both couples. He said, at the meeting, Mrs Kaur asked him to leave his wife but he refused because he did not want to lose his family.