Melbourne: An Indian-origin neurosurgeon, convicted in 2010 for manslaughter and supplying cocaine to two female escorts, has won a substantial reduction in his sentence, with an Australian court agreeing that one of the women willingly took the drug which killed her.
Suresh Nair, 44, who pleaded guilty in late 2010 to manslaughter and supplying cocaine, has had a two year and three month jail term for supplying cocaine to escort Victoria McIntyre slashed to six months.
The decision means he will now be eligible for parole a year earlier than originally ordered by the Sydney District Court, the Herald Sun reported. McIntyre died after taking the drug at Nair's Elizabeth Bay apartment in February 2009.
"It involved a supply, where both the offender and the recipient were adults and were consuming the drug," said appeal judgment on Thursday.
"Such conduct is common and rarely comes before the courts," it said.
The judgment said Nair took the drug "to heighten sexual arousal" and may have given it to McIntyre in the hope she would have the same reaction. But it said that his sentence in the District Court
wasn't supposed to be in relation to her death, but only for giving her the drug.
"Her death is relevant only to (Nair's) knowledge of the risks associated with the supply of cocaine, something of which the applicant, as a neurosurgeon, ought to have been aware," the judgment said.
Nair has failed in his bid to have his sentenced for the manslaughter of Suellen Domingues-Zaupa reduced. A committal hearing in 2010 heard Zaupa, who also died from a fatal supply of cocaine, could have been saved because Nair waited a long time to call an ambulance and give first aid.
Nair, who is a Malaysian citizen born to Indian parents, also failed to have a second cocaine supply charge, done while he was out on bail for the first two crimes, reduced. He will be eligible for release on parole in July 2014.
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