Brampton man to spend 7 years behind bars for sexual assault of foreign student that just landed in Canada
Published November 7, 2022 at 9:53 pm
A man from Brampton is about to spend most of the next decade behind bars after he sexually assaulted a foreign student who had just landed in Canada.
The victim, then a 21-year-old from India, landed at Mississauga’s Pearson Airport on September 9, 2020 on a journey to complete her education. However, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, she was unable to complete her trip to Montreal.
Under the then-current health restrictions, she had to self-isolate for a 14-day period. She had no family or friends in the country and had never been to Canada before. Her first language is Punjabi, but she spoke some English on her arrival. In his reasons for judgment Justice Brock Jones stressed, “She was alone.”
Stranded in Toronto the student found herself renting an Airbnb room in Toronto. There she met Krishyanth Kugarajah, the man who would soon attack her.
Kugarajah is now 28. He dropped out of high school and continually refused to find gainful employment since. He collected payments from Ontario Works. As such he lived in Brampton with his uncle, his guardian since Kugarajah’s own immigration from Sri Lanka at 9 years old. Kugarajah is now a Canadian Permanent Resident.
In September 2020 Kugarajah was also renting a room in the same house as the student. During this period, the court found, he twice sexually assaulted her and forcibly confined her to the room.
Videos
In the first such instance, after meeting for a few times and watching a movie together, Kugarajah asked the student to watch another. Kugarajah then overpowered the student despite her pleas to stop and raped her. Jones later describe the attack as “very forceful.”
After the assault Kugarajah threatened to have her deported should she report the attack to police. He pretended to have authority over her immigration status and the best lawyers in the city. The student, new to Canada as she was, knew no better and feared this threat. “She was alone and isolated and did not know what to do,” Jones wrote.
Sometime later, the student came to the room and found Kugarajah inside. She told him to leave and went out to the yard for a few hours.
When she returned to the room Kugarajah, still in the room, attacked her a second time, again sexually assaulting her. This time the student told Kugarajah that she would kill herself as a result of the attacks and he slapped her across the cheek.
Finally a third instance in the room, on September 20, resulted in Kugarajah’s other convictions. He returned to the room a third time and forced his way in. The student told him to leave her alone after which he slapped her again.
She tried to leave, but Kugarajah pushed her back into the room and said he could kill her if she escaped him. She was trapped like this for ten minutes until the arrival of a food delivery person distracted Kugarajah. The student was able to get away and get help from other tenants in the Airbnb.
The other tenants called the police who arrived soon afterwards and arrested Kugarajah.
Later, at trial the student “testified clearly and directly” according to Jones. She described the series as attacks in great detail and gave “logical and consistent” testimony. Her account was additionally backed up by a nurse at the Ontario College Hospital, swabs taken of her that tested positive for Kugarajah’s DNA.
Conversely, Kugarajah’s testimony was described as “illogical, plagued by internal and external inconsistencies, and large portions of it were simply utterly implausible,” per Jones. He testified that he had never understood anything the victim had said during their days living in the same home.
“He made statements that were inconsistent with one another regularly. He denied ever being in her room but then said he was in it four to six times. He said he liked to sleep alone yet he also said P.K. slept in his room “countless times,” Jones wrote.
“He also made strange remarks that she ‘blended into the space’ and he had mostly ‘non-existent contact’ with her. He said he did not know what his penis was,” Jones continues.
“It was clear he was trying to avoid giving specific answers to questions that he felt might reflect poorly on him given the nature of the allegations. He denied several suggestions that he had sexual relations with P.K. without her consent and that he hit her. He was perfectly capable of responding directly when it suited him. He simply did not want to answer questions he found challenged his description of their relationship,” Jones concluded of Kugarajah’s testimony.
Ultimately Jones convicted Kugarajah of two counts of sexual assault, forcible entry, forfinement, assault and threatening death.
However, during a sentencing hearing on September 26 after his conviction, Kugarajah fled the court. His uncle and lawyer pleaded with him to return to court, but Kugarajah would not return. He was later re-arrested on October 5.
Jones sided with the Crown when it came to Kugarajah’s sentence imposing a seven-year term in prison. Each count of sexual assault garnered Kugarajah three years and one year came from the forcible confinement.