Driving case nurse who tried to blame sister is shown mercy by judge
SHE IS NOT SENT TO PRISON DESPITE PREVIOUS DRINK-DRIVE OFFENCE
A ROYAL Derby Hospital nurse has escaped an immediate jail term for lying to the police when she gave her sister’s name after being pulled over when driving, knowing she was unlicensed and uninsured.
A judge told Sukhjit Dhanoa it was her commitment to the nursing profession and that she cared for her father which persuaded her to not send the 25-year-old to immediate custody for what she did.
A hearing earlier this year was told how Dhanoa, from the Stockbrook area of Derby, “panicked” when she was pulled over during a routine stop in London Road.
The oncology (cancer) nurse, who has a previous drink-drive conviction, gave police officers false information before telling her sister, who demanded she come clean.
Handing Dhanoa a six-month jail sentence, suspended for two years, Judge Nirmal Shant QC said: “What you did strikes at the very heart of the criminal justice system.
“People who do what you did commit serious offences and if you did not know that before you certainly know it now.
“You gave someone else’s name in relation to a driving matter and that resulted in a conviction for them. But I have to have regard for both aggravating and mitigating features and there is another side to you.
“You are in your 20s and you have a nursing career, one which you have applied yourself to. You care for your father and there is a clear prospect of rehabilitation for you.”
Thomas Welshman, prosecuting the first hearing in August, said in 2019 Dhanoa, of Dean Street, was disqualified from driving for 13 months.
On that occasion she was also fined £424 and was ordered to pay £85 costs, a £42 victim surcharge after a blowing of 54 micrograms of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath (when the legal limit is 35) after being pulled over in Manor
Road in September of that year. Mr Welshman said: “On September 15, 2020, this defendant was stopped while driving her father’s car in London Road, Derby, in the afternoon.
“There was information she had an expired licence and when asked to give her details she gave her sister’s name as being the driver.
“She told her sister she panicked and her sister told her she must come clean.”
Dhanoa pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice, driving without a licence and without insurance.
Tom Heath, mitigating, said her client works for the oncology department at the Royal Derby Hospital and that her employer knows about the court proceedings.
He said: “There is a history of mental health problems which seem to have started when she was at university and were due to the separation of her parents.
“She is the sole carer for her father, who is 62, has high blood pressure and is Type 2 diabetic.
“The NMC (Nursing and Midwifery Council) disciplinary body is awaiting the outcome of this case.
“She has taken a specialist chemotherapy course and she is very skilled and very valued in her team which is already shortstaffed.”
As part of the suspended sentence, Dhanoa must carry out 150 hours unpaid work and attend 12 rehabilitation sessions with the probation service.
She was also ordered to pay £300 court costs.