Wednesday, July 16, 2025 - A nurse has been sentenced after she paid a patient $3,000 to cut her ex-lover's penis and tongue off and burn his face with acid.
The nurse, Karenjeet Kaur Warburton, has been banned from
practising for four years.
The decision by the Queensland Civil and
Administrative Tribunal was published last week after it was handed down to
Karenjeet Kaur Warburton in March.
Tribunal member Julie Dick heard Warburton had approached a
patient she thought "might be up for" severely injuring her former
boyfriend, senior Queensland Police Inspector Don McKay.
Warburton had dated Inspector McKay between March 2020 and
early 2021.
She gave the patient, Andrew Bown, photos of the inspector
and his home between April 1 and October 6, 2021, and handed over $3,000 for
the proposed hit.
"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.
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.
"It is unfortunate that 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 on 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 Cairns District Court in November 2022.
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