Charge fraud pharmacist loses appeal
A community pharmacist found guilty of defrauding the National Health Service of £2,000 has had her appeal against the conviction dismissed.
Lay Ean Atkinson was convicted on 15 counts of false accounting after
she kept prescription charges paid by patients and endorsed prescriptions
to suggest that multiple small packs had been supplied instead of larger
ones (PJ, 1 February 2003, p140).
At the same trial, Ms Atkinson was cleared of two further counts of false
accounting and two of giving false information.
Arguing in the Court of Appeal that her convictions were unsafe, counsel
for Ms Atkinson said that the trial judge had been wrong to refer to
possible reckless behaviour in his jury directions and had undermined
the definition of false accounting, which required deliberate acts. Dismissing
the appeal, Lord Justice May said that although he could see force in
the criticism of the trial judge’s summing up, the jury had been
in substance properly directed and that the appeal should fail. Other
grounds for appeal — that the conviction and acquittal verdicts
were inconsistent — were also dismissed. |
