An Indian immigrant truck driver who raped his future wife and told her she was now the “mother of my kids”, has been jailed for almost 10 years in Adelaide after a judge found he exploited her cultural and religious beliefs.
Manvir Singh, 36, was found guilty by a jury of two counts of rape, four counts of aggravated assault, and three counts of attempting to dissuade a person from giving evidence, and was sentenced in the South Australia District Court in late June.
The court heard Singh met his victim in February 2023 via an Indian matrimonial website where her sister was searching for a suitable husband for her.
After travelling from Perth to Adelaide to meet the woman and her family, Singh asked her to help him pack his luggage in his room at the Finsbury Hotel, but raped her once they were both inside.
After the rape Singh laughed and told the victim in Punjabi: “Congratulations, you are the mother of my kids now.”
Judge Geraldine Davison told Singh in sentencing that this was “in effect, saying you could now force her to marry you because you had shamed her by doing this”.
The judge also noted the victim repeatedly told Singh to stop and told him he was committing a sin in their religion.
The day after the rape the pair visited a Sikh temple in Prospect, where Singh swore before God that he loved the woman and would not hurt her, drink alcohol, take drugs or be unfaithful, and they married on March 11, 2023.
“Although the complainant had misgivings about the wedding, she went ahead with it,” Judge Davison said, adding that the victim did not know whether she was pregnant as a result of the rape.
“She had been shamed by you as you had sexual intercourse with her prior to the wedding. The invitations had gone out for the wedding, and she felt it was too late to back out.”
Singh later demanded money for alcohol, verbally abused his wife by calling her a “slut”, accused her of sleeping with other men, and physically assaulted her.
In November 2023, while staying at her family home, Singh raped her a second time despite her repeated protests. On another occasion that month, he slapped her, grabbed her by the wrists and dragged her to the ground before her sister arranged for him to leave.
Judge Davison found Singh had deliberately exploited the complainant’s cultural beliefs.
“You took advantage of what you well understood to be strongly held cultural beliefs by the complainant, that she could not speak about intimate matters between you and her,” she said.
“You knew that this gave you the upper hand to behave as you pleased.”
The court also heard that after charges were laid, Singh attempted to pressure the victim into withdrawing them by threatening to defame her family within the Indian community and involving the head of her village in India.
In her victim impact statement, the woman said: “Before marriage, I always dreamt of a peaceful and happy married life like every ordinary woman dreams of. I never realised this marriage would break me so completely and my life would never be the same again.”
Judge Davison rejected the defence’s argument that Singh’s likely deportation after serving his sentence should be considered a mitigating factor.
“I do not consider the likelihood of deportation in these circumstances to be a feature that should mitigate the sentence that I impose,” she said.
“I accept that being deported is likely to occur. This is a consequence of committing such serious offences in this country.”
Judge Davison said Singh had “expressed no remorse or contrition” and found his prospects of rehabilitation were poor before sentencing him to nine years, seven months and three days’ imprisonment, with a non-parole period of seven years, seven months and three days.
His sentence was backdated to 10 September 2024, taking into account time already spent in custody and on home detention.
Header image: The Finsbury Hotel (Google Street View).
