An Indian NDIS employee has avoided jail for passing on the private information of tens of thousands of disabled people to business-owner friends so they could chase them as clients.
Leena Kumar, 50, of Blacktown in Sydney’s west, was sentenced in Parramatta District Court on Monday after pleading guilty to one count of record, use, disclose of protected agency info, and two counts of official abuse of public office to gain advantage, The Daily Telegraph reported.
Judge John Pickering sentenced Kumar, a mother-of-two, to a custodial sentence of two years and six months, suspended to be served as an intensive corrections order along with 300 hours of community service and a fine of $4,000.
He said he spared Kumar jail because she had no prior convictions, supported her parents, and made an early guilty plea, but before the hearing rejected a request from the Commonwealth Public Prosecutor to have the case heard in closed court.
The court heard that Kumar gave the names, disabilities and plan details of 43,000 NDIS participants, including a 12-year-old girl, to Amit Sharma and Nikita Patel over a 20-month period beginning in 2021, and at least one person reported an “unannounced and unwelcome” knock on the door from someone trying to get their business.
Earlier this year Sharma pleaded guilty to three counts of solicit disclosure of protected agency information and will be sentenced in June, while Ms Patel has not been charged with any offences, is not accused of any wrongdoing, and is not part of the criminal proceedings.
Kumar’s barrister Peter Kondich said his client had not received any financial gain from passing on the names to her friends, and Judge Pickering agreed there was no evidence she had received “kickbacks”, and said she may have thought as her friends were providing a service there was no harm done.
However, he said that Kumar’s actions destroyed public trust in the controversial and expensive NDIS, and had the “capacity to undermine the scheme”.
“She has effectively stolen our trust. Victims were multifaceted, not just the vulnerable on the NDIS but all of us that are taxpayers to this massive industry,” he told the court.
In February last year Kumar was banned from being involved, directly or indirectly, in the provision of NDIS supports or services to people with disability for a period of two years.
Header image: Left, Leena Kumar. Right, Amit Sharma and Nikita Patel Sharma (Instagram, Facebook).
