Guilty plea to murder after insanity dupe fails

Ishrat 'Mike' Malik. Photo NZ Herald
Ishrat 'Mike' Malik. Photo NZ Herald
A man who stabbed his wife and daughter to death in their West Auckland home spent the next seven months trying to dupe health professionals into thinking he was insane.

After dozens of reports into his mental health and several hearings, 56-year-old Ishrat "Mike" Malik was declared fit to stand trial by Justice Simon Moore last week.

Today in the High Court at Auckland he pleaded guilty to two counts of murder.

He stood hunched in the dock with his head down. He cried and held his hands up to his face.

Through an interpreter, Malik said "guilty" through tears.

On the morning of May 19, Malik took a knife and in a frenzy stabbed his wife Farhat Ranan to death in the bedroom of their Ranui home.

She suffered more than 20 wounds all over her body.

Malik then turned the knife on his 18-year-old daughter Sidra Noor Malik, who was in her bedroom downstairs.

An ESR reconstruction shown in court pictured her on the floor in a pool of her own blood.

She too suffered at least 25 wounds from which she had no hope of surviving.

When police arrived on scene, they found Malik with "dry crusty blood" completely covering his hands and forearms.

During a medical assessment he said: "I murdered them" and explained the circumstances to police in subsequent interviews.

However, in August his lawyer Paul Borich filed a psychologist's report which concluded his client was suffering from dissociative amnesia and could not meaningfully participate in the court process as a result.

Several other doctors assessed Malik but reached a much different conclusion when they gave evidence in the High Court last week.

Dr Jon Nuth gave the defendant a series of tests to complete and was confident he was deliberately choosing wrong answers to exaggerate his struggles.

Malik was observed among other prisoners, while on remand, acting normally but as soon as he came before a psychologist, he changed.

He told doctors he had no memory of his age, name or his family but all agreed there was a strong element of faking.

The court also heard recordings of Malik's phone calls to police on the morning of the murders, five hours after ringing work to tell them he would not be coming in that day.

"Please come here. Murder, murder, murder," he told police before hanging up.

Before police arrived at the scene Malik called his other daughter, who did not live with them at the Pooks Rd address.

"I finished them both," he told her.

"I killed your mother and sister," he repeated three times.

It can also be revealed Mrs Malik and her daughter had a protection order against Malik since Christmas day 2013.

Dr Joseph Sakdalan described Malik's role of patriarch as "controlling and manipulative" and said the killing was possibly caused by "narcissistic rage".

About six months before the murders he had been diagnosed as having hepatitis C and he was frustrated his family were not tending to his needs enough.

Malik told police they ganged up on him and for days leading up to the incident had struggled to sleep as he had toyed with the idea of killing himself or the whole family.

He will be sentenced on March 13, 2015 and will face a mandatory term of life imprisonment.

The court will determine the minimum term to be served without parole.

- Rob Kidd and Sophie Ryan of NZME. News Service

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