Anu Singh

Singh's relationship with Joe Cinque

Cinque and Singh met in Newcastle in 1995. The following year, Singh and Cinque were living together in Canberra while she was a law student at the Australian National University. During the 1998 trial, one of Singh's friends testified that she had been obsessed with her body since 1991 and had briefly taken Ipecac after Cinque mentioned it, something she was later angry with him for. Singh was reportedly obsessed with fad diets and would spend hours working out at the gym.

Death of Cinque

In May 1997 Singh told a friend that she wanted to kill several people, including Cinque, her ex-boyfriend Simon Walsh and her doctors.

Singh's close friend Madhavi Rao invited acquaintances to two dinner parties in October 1997 and told them that a crime would be committed. Witness Sanjeeva Tennekoon reported that the first dinner party on 24 October was normal and that Singh and Cinque appeared loving. However, another witness told the court that Rao had told her afterwards that Singh had tried to kill Cinque that evening but did not deliver a sufficient dose, and that the witness had threatened to go to the police. The day after the first dinner party, Singh and Rao went to a friend, Len Mancini, and told him they had given Cinque drugs the previous evening.

Cinque died on 26 October 1997, the morning after the second dinner party. Toxicology reports showed high levels of heroin and rohypnol in his body.

Witness Ross Manley claimed that Singh bought more heroin from Manley's friend on the morning of 26 October. Singh called an ambulance for Cinque at 12:10pm on 26 October, and the ambulance officers found that he had had a cardiac arrest. Singh made it difficult for the ambulance to respond quickly, giving a false address. Singh told police at the scene that she had administered drugs to Cinque. Police reported that when they arrived at the scene, Singh was hysterical and struggled with police and ambulance officers when they took her away from Cinque's body.

Trial

Singh first appeared in court on 28 October 1997, charged with murder. She had told police that she had injected Cinque with heroin so that he would not interfere with a suicide attempt. Madhavi Rao was charged with conspiracy to commit murder and released on bail on 5 November. The prosecutor noted that both Singh and Rao had been indiscreet about their actions. Singh applied for bail in December, and a psychiatrist presented evidence of a personality disorder. Singh and Rao were tried jointly in October and November 1998, but this trial was aborted on 11 November, with Justice Ken Crispin saying that one of the pieces of evidence was problematic as it was unclear as to which of Singh or Rao it was admissible against. For the second trial, Singh elected to stand trial by judge alone, forgoing a jury. Justice Crispin ruled that Singh and Rao should be tried separately in the interest of fairness.

In her 1999 trial, Singh's defence presented evidence that she was mentally ill and had diminished responsibility. The court was told that Anu believed she was dying from a muscle wasting disease, complained of "not being able to feel her head on her body" and was bulimic. The prosecutors called an expert witness to testify that Singh had appeared rational and assertive on the night she was arrested. On 23 April Crispin J found Singh guilty of manslaughter and the following day sentenced her to ten years' imprisonment with a minimum four years non-parole period. Cinque's mother was deeply unhappy with the short sentence. In Rao's second trial, she was charged with murder, manslaughter, attempted murder, and administering a stupefying drug and was acquitted of all charges.

Singh was released on parole in October 2001 after four years imprisonment including time she had served on remand since 1997. She was returned to jail in April 2004 after breaching her parole conditions by smoking marijuana and re-released on 5 August 2004 after challenging her re-imprisonment on a technicality.

Early life

Anu Singh was born on 3 September 1972 to Indian parents–Pradyumn "Paddy" and Surinder Singh–both doctors. The family emigrated from India to Sydney in 1973, when Singh was a baby. They settled in the suburb of Strathfield. Singh attended Catholic high school in Newcastle, New South Wales, where she was the dux of Year 10 in 1988. She graduated high school in 1990 and moved to Canberra the following year to begin studying a double degree in Economics/Law at the Australian National University. Singh missed her life in Sydney, engaged in recreational drug use while living in Canberra, and frequently called home to her parents. As a result, she deferred her studies for one year to return to her family in Sydney.

Singh's early life was relatively unremarkable, and her father remarked on her as a "happy-go-lucky child" albeit one with some attachment issues, who gradually descended into mental illness in her twenties. According to Paddy Singh, Anu's problems escalated in 1995 (prior to her relationship with Joe Cinque) after a break-up with an ex-boyfriend, Simon Walsh–she began to use recreational drugs daily, developed insomnia and would pace the house of a night. Singh's breakup with Walsh was referred to as a "significant life event" in the court transcript. By the time she met Joe Cinque, she was dieting excessively, suffered emotionally instability and would obsess about her weight. Singh's problems appeared to stabilise briefly during the early days of her relationship with Cinque, but soon returned. Her university attendance became sporadic, and when she was seen by her peers, she appeared to be "dishevelled" and "poorly dressed". Her father took her to various psychologists and psychiatrists for help, who opined Singh's problem was "psychological", not "physical", as she had believed.

After release

Singh has completed a masters in criminology at Sydney University, having attended classes on day release from Emu Plains Correctional Centre.

In June 2005, concern was expressed in the New South Wales Parliament about Singh's employment with the Cabramatta Community Centre. The public were reassured that Singh was not employed to distribute clean injecting equipment and that her employment was on a time-limited project.

In 2010 she began research at the University of Sydney Faculty of Law, and in 2012 was awarded a doctorate for her thesis Offending Women: Toward a Greater Understanding of Women’s Pathways Into and Out of Crime in Australia. It outlines "five major pathways that led [female prisoners] to crime: unstable upbringings, sexual and physical abuse, drug use, economic marginality and mental illness". An edited version was released as a self-published ebook in 2016.

She met her current partner, Aaron Erbacher, while in the Belconnen remand centre in 1998. They have been in a relationship for the last 19 years.

In literature and other adaptations

The crime has been adapted into works by several authors and filmmakers. Helen Garner's 2004 book Joe Cinque's Consolation, published in the same month as her re-release from prison, was a widely publicised account of Singh's crime and trial, together with the Cinque family's response to it. Singh gave interviews shortly after the release of the book, recounting her own memories of the killing and expressing regret at rejecting Garner's request for an interview. She told interviewers that she wished to redress some of the book's imbalance towards her.

In 2005, a documentary was being made about Singh by James Ricketson which covered her employment in Cabramatta. The documentary was reportedly to be called Atonement.

In 2012, it was announced that Garner's book would be turned into a film to be directed by Canberran Sotiris Dounoukos. Dounoukos was at ANU studying law at the same time as Singh; she was "a friend of friends". The film would be partially funded by Screen Australia. The film, also called Joe Cinque's Consolation, was given a cinematic release on 13 October 2016 to generally positive critical attention. Singh was portrayed by actress Maggie Naouri.

Other works based on the death of Joe Cinque include: