Malaysian Brain Doctor's Sentence Reduced

A Malaysian neurosurgeon who held cocaine-fueled sex sessions with escorts has won a reduction in his sentence after a Sydney court agreed that one of the women willingly took the drug which killed her.

Suresh Surendranath Nair, 44, who pleaded guilty in late 2010 to manslaughter and supplying cocaine, had his jail term of two years and three months for supplying cocaine to escort Victoria McIntyre slashed to six months, the Daily Telegraph reported.

Nair will now be eligible for parole in July 2014 -- a year earlier than originally ordered by the Sydney District Court.

McIntyre died after taking the drug at Nair's Sydney apartment in February 2009.

"It involved a supply...where both the offender and the recipient were adults and were consuming the drug. Such conduct is common and rarely comes before the courts," the appeal judgment said.

The judgment said Nair took the drug "to heighten sexual arousal" and may have given it to McIntyre in the hope she would have the same reaction.

But it said that his sentence in the District Court wasn't supposed to be in relation to her death, but only for giving her the drug.

"Her death is relevant only to (Nair's) knowledge...of the risks associated with the supply of cocaine -- something of which the applicant, as a neurosurgeon, ought...to have been aware."

Nair had failed in his bid to have his sentence for the manslaughter of Suellen Domingues-Zaupa reduced. A committal hearing in 2010 heard that Zaupa, who also died from a fatal supply of cocaine, could have been saved had Nair not waited a long time to call an ambulance and give first aid.