No extra jail time for Nitesh Bissendary for covering up evidence after fatal Ramsgate crash
A drug-driver jailed for 16 years for killing a pregnant woman and her elderly father will not spend a single extra day behind bars for trying to cover up his crime.
Nitesh Bissendary mounted a pavement in Leopold Street, Ramsgate[1], in his Alfa Romeo and fatally struck Noga Sella, 37, and 81-year-old Yoram Hirshfield in August 2022.
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.
But instead of alerting emergency services, Bissendary chose to phone his parents, former Metropolitan police officer Barjunsing Bissendary, 59, and Sadhana Bissendary, 56, to help him remove evidence linking him to the death smash.
Canterbury Crown Court heard that between them they removed items from the car, including drugs, as well as further drugs and paraphernalia from his bedroom at the family home in Highlands Glade, Manston.
They also concealed Bissendary's mobile phone from police and removed its SIM card.
His stash of cocaine was actually retrieved from the wreckage while emergency workers were still tending to the injured and as Mrs Sella 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 at about 9.30pm on August 10 2022.
They were visiting from Cambridge and heading back to their hotel after enjoying a meal when the Alfa Romeo struck them from behind, having travelled as far as 30 metres along the pavement.
Mrs Sella was later 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.
Bissendary 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 2022.
In March last year he admitted perverting the course of justice but had to wait to be sentenced at the same court until Thursday (March 7), when he was handed a jail term of eight months.
But the judge decided, having considered what is known as the principle of totality, that it was to run concurrently and not consecutively to the 16-year sentence which he is serving in Swaleside Prison on the Isle of Sheppey.
His parents had pleaded guilty to the same charge back in November last year and at that hearing were each handed a 12-month jail term suspended for 18 months.
Their son's phone had been found concealed in their Mercedes car between the front passenger seat and central arm rest. The SIM card however was missing.
Drug-related material removed from his bedroom was discovered in bin sacks in the boot. This included deal bags, phials of a mixing agent and a bowl containing cocaine residue.
A package containing 8.42g of cocaine was also discovered hidden in the Mercedes exhaust, which was later discussed between father and son during a phone call made from prison while Bissendary Jnr was on remand.
At the parents' sentencing hearing Judge Simon James said they had acted out of "misguided loyalty", having been confronted with a "conflicting dilemma" of doing the right thing or protecting their son.