A nurse, identified as Karenjeet Kaur Warburton in Queensland, Australia, has been banned from practicing for four years after she paid a patient $3,000 to attack her former lover, a senior police inspector, by cutting off his penis and tongue and burning his face with acid.
According to multiple reports, Warburton dated the victim, Inspector Don McKay, between March 2020 and early 2021. Following the end of their relationship, she plotted the gruesome assault.
The ruling, handed down by the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal (QCAT) in March but published last week, revealed that Warburton approached a patient she believed might be willing to carry out the attack.
Tribunal member Julie Dick stated that between April 1 and October 6, 2021, Warburton gave the patient, Andrew Bown, photographs of McKay and his home address, along with $3,000 to execute the plan.
“She had paid a significant amount and offered an even more significant amount to the proposed assailant,” Ms Dick wrote in the tribunal decision.
“Warburton instructed a law enforcement participant to have Insp McKay’s ‘penis and tongue cut off, his face burnt with acid, his spine to be severed with a knife for the purpose of causing paralysis, or to break every bone in his body so that he could no longer walk or talk.”
Ms Dick noted that Warburton’s efforts only stopped when she was arrested.
She pleaded guilty to one count of attempting to procure grievous bodily harm and one count of attempting to procure a malicious act with intent and was sentenced to five years behind bars, to be suspended after 16 months.
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When facing the health tribunal, the former nurse did not contest claims that she had committed professional misconduct by asking a patient to carry out her dirty work.
The tribunal banned Warburton from working in healthcare for four years, which included time she had already served behind bars.
“Unfortunately, this serious behaviour has led to the respondent being in the difficult circumstances in which she now finds herself,” Ms Dick wrote in her ruling.
“The tribunal is aware she will have to reapply for registration.
“Upon doing so, she will be confronted with having no recency of practice and there will be other steps that she might have to take.”
Bown was charged with committing arson, attempting to procure a person to do grievous bodily harm to another person, and possessing a dangerous item to assist another person in committing a crime.
He was sentenced to three-and-a-half years behind bars for his part in the plot by the Cairns District Court in November 2022.
