The wife of a murderer who tried to hide incriminating evidence from police has been sentenced to five months' home detention.

Gurpreet Kaur, 31, appeared in the High Court at Dunedin this morning after pleading guilty to attempting to pervert the course of justice.

Kaur’s husband 35-year-old Rajinder was found guilty of the murder of Gurjit Singh following a jury trial last year and was jailed for life with a minimum of 17 and a half years at sentencing in April.

The court heard Kaur was now in the process of obtaining a divorce and had protection orders granted in her favour against her former partner and members of his family.

The woman admitted hiding a pair of her husband's shoes, which were found by police when they showed up at her work a week after the killing.

Mr Singh's wife Kamaljeet Kaur – who was just days away from joining him in Dunedin – said her existence since the incident had been "a living nightmare".

"It hurts her you acted in the way you did, despite being a woman, despite being a wife," Justice Jonathan Eaton said

"You had an opportunity to do the right thing and you chose not to do so."

Rajinder drove to the Liberton home of the 27-year-old victim late on January 28, 2024 and inflicted a brutal attack with a knife he had bought just hours earlier from a hunting store.

An autopsy found Mr Singh had been stabbed at least 46 times and the killer had attempted to decapitate him.

A week after the brutal stabbing, Detectives Amanda Scott and Shelley Dodds visited Rajinder's wife at her Fairfield workplace.

They advised her they would be charging her husband with Mr Singh's murder and said they wanted to speak to her at the station.

Kaur, though, asked if she could collect her handbag and requested a toilet stop on the way out.

Det Scott said the woman was in the bathroom for up to four minutes before they heard the toilet flush twice and the woman emerged, looking “distressed”.

“She was sweaty and she was shaking,” the officer said.

When they searched the bathroom, inside a 60l bin, underneath the liner, police found a dark bag with the handles tied.

When they opened it, they discovered a pair of Rajinder’s dark lace-up shoes.

Subsequent forensic examination of the soles of the footwear turned up tiny fragments of glass consistent with a window that shattered during Mr Singh’s murder.

Kaur initially denied any knowledge of the shoes but when questioned further, she acknowledged they belonged to her husband and said he had given them to her because he did not like them.

The defendant said she was scared at the time and denied any knowledge of the murder.

Kaur had only been married to Rajinder for a year when the murder occurred and counsel Brendan Stephenson said there were "cultural factors" that weighed heavily on her, forcing her compliance.

He told the court his client knew only that her husband had been interviewed by police in relation to Mr Singh's murder and he had told her "not to worry".

When police arrived at her workplace she was "in a state of panic", Mr Stephenson said.

Justice Jonathan Eaton accepted that may have been the case at the time she was confronted by police but stressed there must have been an earlier agreement for her to dispose of the shoes.

"She must've taken them to work on some earlier occasion," he said. "There was obviously a plan."

Kaur boasted references from friends and family members, speaking of her positive traits.

One remarked on her "integrity and kindness", while her brother described her as "a person of pure heart and strong moral values".

But Justice Eaton said that was difficult to reconcile when held alongside her crime which involved an "inherent dishonesty and lack of integrity".

Mr Stephenson argued a sentence of community detention was the appropriate penalty but the judge disagreed.

"When someone knowingly tries to conceal evidence of a murder, the court needs to be seen to be taking a hard line," he said.

The court heard Kaur had recently been working as caregiver but lost her job as a result of her immigration status.