‘Depressed’ dad admits slitting the throats of his two young kids in lockdown knife frenzy

After being angry when customers at the shop he worked at were disrespectful to him, a distraught father has admitted slitting the throats of his two young children during the lockdown.

Nadarajah Nithiyakumar, 41, pleaded guilty to manslaughter at the Old Bailey by diminishing the liability of his two daughters, aged three years and 19 months respectively.

On April 26, Pavinya Nithiyakumar, who was just 19 months old, and Nigash Nithiyakumar, who was 3, were fatally injured with a knife at the family home in Ilford, east London.

Although Nigash was rushed to the Whitechapel hospital, where he too died, Pavinya was pronounced dead at the scene.

It was known that the mother of the twins, identified locally as Nisa, was in the shower at home at the time of the murders and alerted the police.

Her husband was rushed with knife wounds to a hospital.

The shop worker was charged with killing the children after being discharged.

Nithiyakumar accepted that he had killed his daughter and son with a knife in a police interview.

He said he was sad and customers had “upset him” while working in a store.

He had thought about killing himself, but a court had previously heard it would “ruin the lives of the children and they would go off the rails.”

The defendant appeared at the Old Bailey on Thursday before Mrs Justice Cutts.

By diminished liability, which was agreed by the court, he pled guilty to two counts of manslaughter.