Statutory Committee

Striking-off for pharmacist guilty of indecent assault more

Pharmacist reprimanded for errors in methadone supply and recording more

Striking-off for pharmacist guilty of indecent assault

A Birmingham pharmacist who had been convicted of indecent assault has been struck off the register by the Statutory Committee.

At its hearing on 16 June 2003 the committee inquired into the case of David Thomas Wilson, of 5 Dawberry Road, Kings Heath, Birmingham. Information had been received that on 10 May 2002, at Birmingham Crown Court, Mr Wilson had pleaded guilty to, and been convicted of, an indecent assault on a female and of taking an indecent photograph or pseudo-photograph of a child. He had received a community punishment order for 200 hours in respect of the first offence, and a concurrent community service order for 200 hours for the second. He was also ordered to pay costs of £1,000 and his name had been entered on the sex offenders’ register for five years.

Geoff Hudson, of Penningtons (solicitors), presented the facts of the case to the committee.

Paul Troop, of counsel, instructed by Hadgkiss Hughes & Beale (solicitors), represented Mr Wilson, who was present at the inquiry.

The committee heard that the victim of both offences was 15-year-old girl. At the trial, the presiding judge had said that the girl “had been obviously consenting” to the offences.

Giving the committee’s decision, the chairman (Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, QC) observed that the young woman involved had received money from Mr Wilson and, it appeared, had allowed the course of conduct to continue, with her consent, for a number of months.

However, there had been an extended course of inappropriate conduct prior to the indecent assault and the taking of the photograph. What had happened was not a much regretted isolated moment of criminal irresponsibility but the culmination of a relationship over a matter of months. Such conduct on the part of a professional person was wholly unacceptable and rendered Mr Wilson unfit to be on the register, said Lord Fraser.

The committee was advised that Mr Wilson had been removed from the register in 1991 for theft and false accounting, being restored in May 1994. Although the matter responsible for the current hearing was clearly different in character, the committee could not wholly ignore the fact of that earlier removal, said the chairman. However, even if there had been no previous direction for removal of his name, the circumstances of the present conviction were such that, even if that were the only matter before them, the committee would order his removal.

Mr Wilson’s name was ordered to be struck off the register. He had three months in which to appeal.

Pharmacist reprimanded for errors in methadone supply and recording

The duty incumbent upon pharmacists to properly maintain the Controlled Drugs register was emphasised when the Statutory Committee reprimanded a pharmacist for failures in the supply and recording of methadone.

When it met on 18 June 2003, the committee considered the case of Anthony Christopher Lawlor, of 109 Station Road, Wylde Green, Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands. A complaint had been received from the Council of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society alleging that, on dates between August 2000 and January 2001, Mr Lawlor had made advance supplies of methadone otherwise than in accordance with the prescriber’s instalment directions, had failed to maintain an accurate Controlled Drugs register and had failed to endorse prescriptions correctly.

Geoff Hudson, of Penningtons (solicitors), presented the facts of the case on behalf of the Society.

Denis Keegan, of Turner & Debenhams (solicitors), appeared on behalf of Mr Lawlor, who attended the inquiry.

The committee heard that Mr Lawlor, in partnership with his wife, owned a pharmacy at 24 Church Road, Aston, Birmingham, which did not open on Saturdays or Sundays. An examination of the prescriptions for two named patients had revealed a number of irregularities in the supply and recording of methadone, in breach of the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 1985.

Giving the committee’s decision, the chairman (Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, QC) said that the closure of Mr Lawlor’s pharmacy on Saturdays or Sundays was in part the cause of some of the problems that had arisen. An addict’s prescription regularly brought to the pharmacy was for a daily supply of methadone mixture, with two days’ supply to be issued on the Saturday. However, because the pharmacy was not open at the weekend, Mr Lawlor would dispense three days’ supply on the Friday. He told the committee this had been done with the verbal agreement of the prescribing doctor.

Although there was some evidence for such an agreement, said the chairman, Mr Lawlor did not seek consent on every occasion. He assumed that, having been given once, consent would be forthcoming again. However, a verbal variation of the prescription was not sufficient: “A new written prescription must be secured if weekend supplies are to be dispensed on a Friday and not a Saturday”, emphasised Lord Fraser. On at least eight occasions between October 2000 and January 2001 the addict had been given three days’ supply on a Friday.

Further, the chairman continued, although it was required that such prescriptions were endorsed with the date the supply was made, Mr Lawlor had endorsed each prescription as if the supply had been made on the day specified by the prescriber instead of the days on which it had actually taken place.

There were also irregularities in the Controlled Drug register entries relating to the methadone supplies. Mr Lawlor had made 94 separate supplies of methadone to the addict but had made only 23 entries. Of those, the chairman noted, only eight had given the same details as the endorsements on the prescriptions to which they were supposed to relate. The CD register entries had been made on the occasion of the first day’s supply but had related to the full quantity called for by the prescription. In one instance, a prescription had been endorsed to show 12 separate supplies but there was no corresponding entry whatsoever in the register.

There was a “similar sorry tale” in relation to methadone supplies to another patient, the chairman added.

The matter of a prescription entered into the CD register with the wrong date was not particularly significant considered against the other errors. Those, said Lord Fraser, were much more serious and were regarded by the committee as amounting to misconduct such as to render Mr Lawlor unfit to be on the register.

However, continued the chairman, Mr Lawlor had had to learn a salutary lesson that had caused him considerable distress over the past two-and-a-half year, not least because he had faced criminal charges, which were ultimately dismissed. The committee was satisfied that he had learnt his lesson. Recent visits by one of the society’s inspectors had found his CD register in order. Mr Lawlor was reprimanded.

The chairman emphasised that a CD register was not kept just for a pharmacist’s internal recording purposes but for a wide range of law enforcement authorities. Parliament had ordained the precise terms on which it should be kept. A pharmacist who failed to maintain the register as required by the law was subject to a possible criminal law penalty. Those who came before the Statutory Committee for such a failure had to recognise the peril it might do to their careers.