23 Dec 2014

Malik admits murder of wife, daughter

7:26 pm on 23 December 2014

A man mental experts had found was feigning mental illness to avoid trial has admitted murdering his wife and daughter.

At the High Court in Auckland today Ishrat Malik pleaded guilty to the murder of his wife, Farhat Rana Malik and daughter Sidra Noor Malik in Auckland on 19 May.

He was flanked by two security guards, and wept as he entered his pleas.

Justice Moore heard evidence from four mental health professionals, three of whom found Malik was fit to stand trial.

One doctor concluded Malik had a narcissistic personality disorder that meant he would not able to take part in the court process, but the other three disagreed.

All four found he had been exaggerating mental health symptoms.

In a decision suppressed until today, Justice Moore found Malik's behaviour was an attempt to avoid taking responsibility for killing his wife and daughter.

Justice Moore found that if Malik did not engage in the court process it was because he chose not to, and not because of any mental health condition.

The court was told Malik made phone calls to the 111 emergency number calling police to the Ranui home.

During one of them, he said "murder, murder, murder". He confirmed the address and asked police to come before hanging up.

A patrol car arrived about 10 minutes after the call and officers were met by a blood-stained Malik.

They searched the house and found the body of Malik's daughter, Sidra Malik, lying on the floor of a downstairs bedroom with a bloodied knife next to her. A post mortem found she had 15 stab wounds to her body.

The body of his wife, Farhat Malik, was found on a bed in an upstairs bedroom, and she had also been stabbed multiple times.

A short time later Malik called another one of his daughters and told her he had killed her mother and sister. Throughout the next day, Malik confessed to others, including police officers.

Malik will be sentenced in March.