Police believed they were dealing with a real-life Harry Potter when they rescued a woman who claimed to be held captive as a slave for eight years, a court has heard.
Her husband-and-wife captors, who cannot be named due to a court imposed gag order, are accused of torturing the elderly woman in their Melbourne home as they worked her up to 23-hours a day.
As the Supreme Court of Victoria trial nears its conclusion, the alleged female slaver’s barrister has warned the alleged victim is ‘not a witness of truth’.
The husband and wife, whose home she was found at, are accused of intentionally possessing the woman as a slave between July 2007 and July 2015
The trial, which has been going for more than a month, is expected to draw to its conclusion within the coming days.
On Monday, barrister Dr Gideon Boas – for the female accused – was let off the leash and proceeded to pick apart the alleged slave’s story.
The jury had endured hours of the Tamil woman’s testimony, which needed to be meticulously translated and transcribed into English.
The couple has been accused of committing ‘crimes against humanity’ by keeping the woman captive and working her near to death.
The jury has heard allegations their slave had ‘hot curries’ poured over her head as punishment and lived off just an hour a sleep for years at a time.
The elderly woman was found by paramedics in 2015 in a pool of her own urine and weighing just 40kg.
The husband and wife have pleaded not guilty to intentionally keeping the woman as a slave between July 2007 and July 2015.
The woman was discovered after she collapsed inside the couple’s home and they called her an ambulance.
Traumatised and with serious medical conditions, she spent more than two months in hospital recovering – and for much of that time nobody knew her real identity.
Police believed the alleged slaver (pictured) had held her captive like ‘Harry Potter’
A woman accused of being a slave driver would slash her servant with a knife if she was not satisfied with her work, a jury has heard
A man accused of being a slaver enters the Supreme Court of Victoria. He has been accused of sitting back and allowing his wife to torment their elderly slave
‘I do suggest to you that it is only in an alternate universe that the evidence that she gave that she was being woken up by (the accused) every night by having lights switched on, oil poured on her head every night at 4am,’ Dr Boas told the jury on Monday.
Speaking to a federal agent, the alleged victim outlined the allegations in six recorded interviews.
‘She’ll be drinking hot coffee and then she will just, you know, pour it on my face … and then she will be grab the gravy and pour it on my head,’ the woman said.
‘She will say ‘curries not nice’ and then she will just throw it on me.’
Dr Boas told the jury the federal agents who interviewed his client had believed the alleged victim had been held like the fictional wizard, whom was famously imprisoned under the stairs of his captors in the J.K. Rowling hit books and movies.
‘So, no doubt the police had in their minds at this stage they were dealing with somebody like Harry Potter being, you know, held under the stairs or something, right?’ he told the jury.
Dr Boas dismissed the woman’s claims the alleged slave had been kept confined within the family home for years and insisted she had instead been treated like a beloved member of the family.
‘You recall this was a Tamil tradition of feeding somebody cake and she acknowledged that was an expression of love and affection,’ he told the jury.
‘Well, 16 there’s a photo on p.34, depicts (his client) doing that for (the woman on her) birthday. Love and 18 affection, Tamil tradition. Well, the narrative that she came to give about (his client), as we know, is very different. That was then, this is now.’
The woman twice came to Melbourne from her home in Tamil Nadu, in southern India, to care for the couple’s three children (pictured), then disappeared for eight years, the court heard
The female slaver has been accused of throwing things when unhappy with her alleged slave
Dr Boas, who was only cut short when a juror fell ill while listening to his closing address, continued to discredit the alleged slave’s testimony on Monday.
The jury had heard the woman say under cross examination by Dr Boas that her female captor had bashed her so hard that she had broken her skull.
‘(She) kicked, broke my skull’. That was the first time she said that,’ Dr Boas said.
‘Of course, there’s no evidence whatsoever that (she) had a broken skull.’
When the trial opened in February, Dr Boas made it clear the alleged slave had cooked-up the story to avoid being deported back to India after overstaying her temporary visa.
Dr Boas told the jury his client actually considered the woman as family and referred to her affectionately as ‘grandmother’.
He claimed the only crime his client had committed was harbouring the woman after her one-month travel visa had expired.
It was fear of prosecution over the visa violation that not only caused the woman to lie to authorities, but the alleged victim to lie about her captivity, the court heard.
Dr Boas said the alleged victim had ‘crucial motivation’ to make up the story after being questioned by police and Australian Border Force officers.
‘There is very much another side to the story,’ Dr Boas said.
The trial continues.
An alleged slaver leaves court in 2017. She faces years behind bars if convicted of the ‘crime against humanity’
