A Hertfordshire pharmacist found guilty of unlawfully supplying Controlled Drugs and prescription-only medicines to a News of the World investigative agent has had his name removed from the register by the Statutory Committee.
At its meeting on September 29, 1999, the committee inquired into the cases of Mr Piyush Patel, of "The Pines", 24 St Michaels Avenue, Leverstock Green, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, and Chemgrange Ltd, trading as Dobber Pharmacy, West Green Road, London N15. Information had been received that at Haringey magistrates court on November 24, 1998, Mr Patel had been convicted on five counts of unlawfully causing an offence to be committed by Chemgrange Ltd, of which he was the director and superintendent pharmacist. The offences involved the sale without prescription of Controlled Drugs and prescription only medicines. The company had also been convicted on five charges relating to those offences. Mr Patel had been fined a total of £5,000 and ordered to pay £2,212 costs. Chemgrange Ltd had been fined a total of £500 and ordered to pay £2,000 costs.
Mr G. R. F. Hudson, of Walker Martineau (solicitors), appeared in order to place the facts of the case to the committee.
Mr Patel was present at the inquiry; he and Chemgrange Ltd were represented by Mr D. Aaronberg, of counsel, instructed by Miss J. Hill, of Hugh Cartwright & Amin (solicitors).
The committee heard that the offences concerned the sales without prescription of 100 co-proxamol tablets, 200 dihydrocodeine tartrate 30mg tablets, 28 Adifax capsules, 30 Prozac capsules and 100 Valium tablets. The sales had been made to an agent at the instigation of a reporter from the News of the World.
The agent had visited the pharmacy, seen Mr Patel, and asked for methadone for his father, stating that he was ill in Africa. Mr Patel had told him that it was a prescription-only medicine, and had recommended dihydrocodeine as a substitute. He then told the agent to make out a list of the drugs he required and return with it to the pharmacy and see the dispenser.
When the agent returned, he had a list of the drugs which became the subject of the charge. He was accompanied by a reporter, pretending to be a taxi driver. The agent claimed to be on his way to catch an aeroplane to Africa, offered the money to pay for the medicines, which were to be collected later, and asked the dispenser to give them to the supposed taxi driver. The dispenser refused and the agent himself returned for the drugs, for which he paid £100, although £116 was the price initially asked for.
Following publication of a News of the World article on the transaction, two of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's inspectors visited the pharmacy, interviewed Mr Patel, and carried out a stock audit. They had found that there was a shortfall of 7,744 dihydrocodeine 30mg tablets, 1,344 diazepam 10 mg tablets, and 210 Adifax capsules.
Giving the committee's decision, the chairman (Mr Gary Flather, QC) said that Mr Patel had said he had been pressured into making the sales by the agent, who had claimed the medicines were urgently needed by his sick father and were not easily obtained in west Africa.
But the committee did not want in the profession pharmacists who could not stand up to that kind of untruthful story and became willing to bend the rules. How could appetite suppressants (Adifax) be needed urgently? Was it really believable that there was this parent in Africa who was very ill? If that had been the situation, why did Mr Patel not tell them to contact a local doctor and obtain a prescription?
Why had he taken it upon himself to supply unlawfully drugs that could be abused?
It was also worrying that Mr Patel had distanced himself from the transaction, leaving it to the the unqualified dispenser. After the first meeting, whenever the agent had inquired, Mr Patel had been too busy to be involved.
The News of the World investigation team had recorded a telephone call made to Mr Patel to confirm the supply of dihydrocodeine as a "methadone substitute", and the article had followed. "It was a matter of shame for the profession that Mr Patel had behaved in such a way," said the chairman.
On the matter of the stock unaccounted for, the chairman continued, the committee had heard a number of possible explanations. Mr Patel had said he used to purchase drugs at West Green Road for that pharmacy and another pharmacy owned by the company at How Wood Park Street, St Albans, Hertfordshire. The stock for transfer would be put in plastic bags awaiting transfer and had been stored in a place to which builders doing some work on the premises had access. The black plastic bags, it was said, might have been removed in mistake by the builders, who used similar bags. The committee felt that that was improbable but not impossible; however, there were no builders present at the relevant time, and no corroboration for that account.
Secondly, there were no records of transfers between the two branches and there was a policy that each bought separately.
Thirdly, the figures seemed to show that Mr Patel had been ordering far more of the drugs than he could reasonably expect to dispense by way of prescriptions.
It had also been suggested that the wholesaler might have supplied the wrong quantity or that Mr Patel's judgment had been affected by the stress of his own father's illness, or by work and family pressures.
Looking at the overall picture, however, and the substantial amount of Controlled Drugs and POM medicines unaccounted for, the facts suggested that the explanation was that similar unlawful sales had taken place. In reaching that conclusion, said the chairman, the committee rejected Mr Patel's explanations.
The committee directed that Mr Patel's name should be removed from the register. He had three months to appeal against the decision.
No order was made in respect of the company.