DT News - UK - Nurse tries to poison dentist’s coffee with amalgam

Dental Tribune International

Mon. 6 May 2013

save

SHEFFORD – A dental nurse is currently on trial for trying to poison her boss after being given her final warning. The 33-year-old from Bedford, UK, allegedly placed mercury amalgam in the practice manager’s coffee, which caused stomach cramps and sickness.

As reported by the BBC last week, Ravinder Kaur began working as an assistant dental nurse at the dental practice in Shefford in November 2011. In January, she received a verbal warning for inappropriate behaviour towards her colleagues. In March, Kaur was summoned to a meeting with the practice manager, Laura Knowles, to discuss her persistently poor behaviour.

A few days later, Kaur offered to make her boss coffee but did not return for 15 minutes, according to the BBC. During the hearing at the Blackfriars Crown Court, the prosecution stated that Knowles noticed a strange taste and upon pouring the coffee into the sink spotted a grey sludge.

Afterwards, she started to feel sick. X-ray scans of her lower intestine revealed the presence of metal speckles, which were later identified as mercury amalgam and matched the material usually used for dental fillings in the practice.

Kaur was arrested on the same day. The trial continues.

To post a reply please login or register

Inmate tries to smuggle drugs into prison using dental floss

LEICESTER – As reported by the Leicester Mercury online, a prisoner has tried to smuggle drugs into a British prison using a line of dental floss. The...

Nurse from practice with largest recall suspended for life

LONDON, UK: A dental nurse working for a Nottingham dentist responsible for the largest recall of patients in NHS history has been suspended from practice ...

BDIA helps dentists return to practice with new product website

LONDON, UK: As part of the dental industry’s ongoing support for the resumption of widespread dental treatment, the British Dental Industry Association ...

Dentists must prepare to treat growing numbers of elderly patients with “complex medical histories”

The evolving socio-demographics of patients means dentists must be better equipped to identify oral signs of systemic diseases and treat elderly patients ...

UK university partners with mydentist for new route to GDC registration for overseas dentists

LANCASTER, England: As the UK continues to struggle through a prolonged oral healthcare crisis, a gnawing problem remains the recruitment and retainment of ...

Cardiff dental nurse acknowledged for half a century of service

CARDIFF, UK: When Liz Hooper become a Saturday girl at a local dental office in Treharris, the BBC was still broadcasting in black and white, the English ...

Dentists with greater financial incentive take more radiographs

YORK, UK: Radiographs are useful in diagnostics, but they expose patients to potentially harmful radiation. Thus, with every radiograph they take, dentists ...

Women in dentistry: Meet dental nurse and BADN President Debra Worthington

For the fifth part of our series focusing on women in the dental field, Dental Tribune International (DTI) interviewed Debra Worthington, a dental nurse ...

Enlisting dentists to help tackle obesity

LOUGHBOROUGH, UK: Most of the UK population visit their dentist annually, and researchers from Loughborough University think that this primary care health ...

Dentists central to tackling alcohol abuse

LONDON – In a recently published paper on alcohol abuse in the UK, researchers have pointed out the key role of dental professionals in the detection ...

Education

Live webinar
Tue. 17 March 2026
12:00 pm UTC (London)