Former pharmacist fights confiscation order
Former pharmacist Mohammed Shabir, of Wigton Lane, Leeds, who was jailed after defrauding
the NHS of £464 (PJ, 20 August 2005, p216) is fighting a £200,000 confiscation order imposed by the High Court.
In the Appeal Court last week, Lord Justice Thomas accepted that the
case was of importance to the way in which the proceeds of crime are
confiscated.
Operating from the Cardigan Road Pharmacy, in Leeds, between May 2003
and November 2004, Mr Shabir altered prescription forms so that it looked
as though patients who had paid the prescription charge had claimed exemption.
He also claimed for the cost of drugs he had not dispensed. He was convicted
of false accounting and obtaining money transfers by deception in July
2005 and was jailed for nine months on the basis that his benefit from
the crime was £464.
But in January 2006, the High Court ordered that he forfeit £212,464
because all the claims for payment made on the falsified forms, even
legitimate claims, were part of his benefit from crime.
Lord Justice Thomas said that if prosecutors are obliged to sort through
complex transactions, and painstakingly separate the dishonest from the
legitimate, then the deliberately draconian Proceeds of Crime Act 2002
might become unworkable. But he added that it would be harsh if expenses
fiddlers and others were obliged to pay confiscation orders which bore
no relation to their true dishonest gains.
Lord Justice Thomas adjourned the case for further information to be
gathered on how Mr Shabir’s criminal benefit was calculated. The
case is expected to return to court in late April 2008.
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