Parents avoid jail after covering up for Nitesh Bissendary who killed father and daughter in Ramsgate

The parents of a drug-driver who killed a pregnant woman and her elderly father in Ramsgate have been spared jail for helping to cover up his crime. Former Metropolitan police officer Barjunsing, 59, and his wife Sadhana Bissendary, 56, were due to stand trial at Canterbury Crown Court earlier today accused of perverting the course of justice.

Barjunsing and Sadhana Bissendary

The charge arose after their drug dealing son Nitesh Bissendary had mounted a pavement in his Alfa Romeo and fatally struck[1] Noga Sella, 37, and 81-year-old Yoram Hirshfield in August last year. The 31-year-old, who had been out dealing cocaine in the two hours prior to the crash, fled the scene, leaving his dying victims and a seriously injured child who was among the family-of-five mown down.

He was subsequently found unanimously guilty of two offences of causing death by dangerous driving and two of causing serious injury by dangerous driving following a trial and jailed for 16 years in December[2].

Now, almost a year to the day since their son’s sentencing, Barjunsing and Sadhana, of Highlands Glade, Manston, have pleaded guilty to perverting justice in relation to their involvement in the aftermath of the horror smash. The court heard the married couple helped to conceal his mobile phone from police and remove its SIM card, and also removed items including drugs from the Alfa Romeo, as well as arranging the removal of drugs and related paraphernalia from his bedroom. At Bissendary’s trial, jurors heard that having run off, he phoned his parents who then picked him up in their Mercedes and headed back to the wreckage, from where his cocaine was retrieved while emergency workers were still tending to the injured, including Mrs Sella who lay underneath the vehicle.

She and her family, including husband Omer, had been celebrating her pregnancy news just moments before the tragedy unfolded outside a multi-storey car park in Leopold Street at about 9.30pm on August 10.

Nitesh Bissendary

They were visiting from Cambridge and heading back to their hotel after enjoying a meal when Bissendary’s Alfa Romeo struck them from behind, having travelled as far as 30 metres along the pavement.

Mrs Sella was pronounced dead at the scene and Mr Hirshfield, who was a professor, died a short time later in an ambulance. Mr Sella, then 40, suffered internal organ damage, the couple’s young daughter sustained a life-threatening head injury and their son was left with shock and minor injuries. Opening the case against his mum and dad, prosecutor Nina Ellin KC said the couple had gone to his aid that night in a bid to “help and minimise” not only his involvement in the collision but also his use of drugs.

“They came from their home address in their car and collected him. They then returned to the scene of the collision to remove items including some cocaine from the crashed vehicle and to mislead the police,” said Miss Ellin. “By the time they got back to the scene Nitesh Bissendary didn’t have his phone and it was later found concealed in his parents’ car missing its SIM card.

“Following his arrest, his parents returned home and cleared out more drug-related material from his bedroom which was put in some bin liners and into the boot of their car.”

The court heard that Bissendary, having fled to nearby Rose Hill, was overheard in an “animated, hysterical and panicked” state on the phone to his father saying “Dad, Dad, help me, help me. I’ve hit someone, Dad. Come to Ramsgate, you’ve got to come to Ramsgate.”

Following a pause in the call, Bissendary then remarked “It’s bad.”

A few minutes later their car pulled up and he got into the rear seat. The vehicle then drove back to Leopold Street before parking up in Military Road. The trio then got out and walked back to the scene.

The police investigation subsequently discovered from CCTV footage how the three had gone directly to the vehicle. Nitesh got into the driver’s seat and appeared to search around while his mum bent down at his side as if to pick something up and his dad acted as look-out, the court was told.

Barjunsing and Sadhana Bissendary

“At this point Mrs Sella was underneath the vehicle and her leg visible, coming out just near the driver’s door and the front wheel,” said Miss Ellin. Sadhana Bissendary was then seen to return to the Mercedes with something in her hand – what the prosecution said was cocaine – before rejoining her husband and son at the crash scene.

It was at this point that a police officer, having noticed them watching, approached the family to be told by Barjunsing Bissendary that their son had been the driver. Nitesh was then asked for his phone but lied about not knowing its whereabouts. Miss Ellin said a conversation followed between parents and son in Mauritian Creole which was recorded by police body-worn camera and later translated.

It revealed Barjunsing Bissendary telling Nitesh that police “needed proof” as well as discussions about whether he had “taken grass”. HIs mother also told him not to give a blood sample. Nitesh then told his parents his phone was in the rear car door, to be asked by his father about what was at their home.

He also told his son to “Keep quiet” while Sadhana Bissendary remarked “You have to say no”. It was at this point that Nitesh was recorded saying “Go home, in my bedroom next to my bed….” although what followed next was not captured, added MIss Ellin. The court heard the phone was later found in the Mercedes between the front passenger seat and central arm rest.

Although the SIM card was missing, messages that were downloaded revealed Nitesh’s drug-dealing activities earlier that evening. With their son under arrest, the Bissendarys were allowed to leave. However, their car was stopped about 35 minutes later in Newington Road, Ramsgate, and three binbags found in the boot.

Inside were drug-deal bags, paperwork, phials of bicarbonate of soda and a bowl containing cocaine residue. A package containing 8.42g of cocaine was also discovered hidden in the Mercedes exhaust. The couple later told police they were at home watching TV when their son phoned to say there had been an accident.

When he jumped in their car he was “scared and crying” and later vomited.

Noga Sella, 37

Sadhana initially claimed to have taken cigarettes and a lighter from the Alfa Romeo, while Barjunsing – who had been in the police for 15 months in the late 1990s – admitted clearing up his son’s bedroom. But when accused of having acted as a look-out, he told officers they were “twisting the truth”. The couple were released on bail, only for Barjunsing to flout a condition not to contact his son and, in a prison call three days after the fatal smash, they were recorded – again in Creole – discussing the package found in the exhaust.

Barristers on behalf of the couple told the court they had helped their son out of “panic and desperation”. Estelle Thornber, defending Sadhana, said the grandmother had “made the wrong choice for which she was and will be eternally sorry”, while Ben Gordon, defending Barjunsing, said his judgement that night had been “clouded out of devotion to his family”. “He was the recipient of that hysterical call from his son and a call for which he had no opportunity in any sense at all to prepare himself, and thereafter he acted spontaneously, in panic and in a desperate attempt to help his son,” added Mr Gordon.

Handing each a 12-month jail term suspended for 18 months , Judge Simon James said they had acted out of “misguided loyalty”, having been confronted with a “conflicting dilemma”. He told the couple, who both have a previous conviction in 2008 for attempting to obtain a pecuniary advantage by deception; “You acted, it is clear, on your son’s direction and, I have no doubt, under a severely misguided attempt to help your child in the knowledge he had committed a terrible crime which had terrible consequences. “One element that makes your offending particularly callous and serious is the removal of incriminating items from the vehicle when victims were still laying critically injured on the pavement.

“However, I accept your actions were spontaneous and indeed your efforts to hide the incriminating evidence were almost immediately foiled by the prompt and efficient policing.

Yoram Hirshfield, 81

“Your son’s offending was of the utmost seriousness and you were faced with the terrible decision of helping your child or doing the right thing, and that is one dilemma no parent would wish to be confronted with. “What you did was panic and make a very poor decision in the immediate aftermath….It was misguided but your motive was to help protect your son.” In reaching a decision to impose a suspended sentence, Judge James said he had taken their poor health and the current state of prisons into account.

On the fact there were no conditions attached such as unpaid work or a curfew he added: “It is not because you don’t deserve punishment but the fact your convictions and the shame it has brought on your family, as well as the conviction of your son, has been sufficient punishment for both of you.” They were ordered to pay court costs of GBP1,800 by January 1. At Bissendary’s trial, the prosecution told the jury the crash was “entirely avoidable” and that Bissendary’s judgement had been impaired by cocaine.

Bissendary, also of Highlands Glade, Manston, claimed however he was trying to lift a faulty clutch with his hand when the collision occurred. He also insisted he ran from the scene “in a panic”, not realising the true extent of the crash, and then returned simply to switch off the ignition. Although a roadside test had given a positive result for the class A drug, he later refused to give blood for further analysis, telling the court he had a needle phobia.

The long-term cocaine abuser also maintained he had last snorted half a gram the night before the crash. Ahead of his trial, Bissendary had admitted the less serious offences of causing death by careless driving as well as assault causing actual bodily harm, failing to provide a sample for analysis, and possessing cocaine with intent to supply. It was in March this year that he pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice by arranging for the removal of evidence, including drugs from his bedroom and the crash scene, and a phone SIM card.

He is yet to be sentenced for that offence.

References

1. ^ mounted a pavement in his Alfa Romeo and fatally struck (www.kentonline.co.uk)
2. ^ and jailed for 16 years in December (www.kentonline.co.uk)