Pharmacist Andrew Roberts banned for forging prescriptions and stealing drugs of dependence

A pharmacist has been banned from practising for years after forging prescriptions to steal highly addictive drugs from his Adelaide workplace.

A pharmacist who forged prescriptions to obtain highly addictive drugs – and broke into his former workplace to continue stealing them after losing his job – has been banned from providing any health service for five years.

Andrew Thomas Roberts created false patient records and prescriptions to dishonestly obtain drugs of dependence such as Endone, OxyContin, morphine and fentanyl from his employer, an unnamed Adelaide metropolitan pharmacy.

The 30-year-old was arrested and later pleaded guilty to offences of serious criminal trespass, theft and dishonestly manipulating a machine for benefit in December 2019.

The Pharmacy Board of Australia lodged action with the South Australian Civil and Administrative Tribunal seeking disciplinary action against Roberts last year

In a judgment, the tribunal found Roberts was a “trusted employee” whose duties included a monthly audit of drugs of dependency.

He was given a key and security alarm code as well as access to the safe containing the drugs of dependency.

In July 2018, he began creating false prescription records in the pharmacy’s drug dependency computer program, entering 68 false prescriptions on 39 occasions to dishonestly obtain drugs.

In a judgment, the tribunal noted Roberts would use the name of someone he knew as the patient, and their usual medical practitioner as the prescriber, and falsely noted drugs of dependency had been prescribed.

He would then take the drugs from the safe so the audit would still balance.

“Evidence from the patient and the medical practitioner demonstrates that no such prescriptions had been issued, and the records entered by the respondent were false,” the tribunal found.

Roberts also manually altered the stock list “to hide the fact that he had dishonestly taken pharmaceuticals for his own benefit”.

On September 8, 2019, he resigned due to “alleged performance issues” and returned his key three days later “but had obviously had a copy of the key cut before returning it”.

He used his copied key and code to enter the pharmacy on three occasions later that month, to again steal drugs from the safe.

Police later charged him and he pleaded guilty to three counts of serious criminal trespass, two counts of theft and count of dishonestly manipulating machine for benefit but failed to notify the board of the charges, as required, within seven days of being charged.

In May 2021, he was given a suspended sentence on condition of a two-year good behaviour bond.

The tribunal noted the offending was “professional misconduct of a most serious kind”.

It found it was “entirely plausible” that Roberts had developed an addiction to drugs of dependence, but that no “compelling” evidence had established that was the case.

The tribunal said Roberts “acted in an elaborate and systematic way” to obtain the drugs and had “serious character flaws inconsistent with a fitness to be registered”.

Roberts, who failed to engage with the tribunal or with AHPRA during its investigation, has not practised since November 2019 and his registration lapsed the following month.

He was reprimanded and disqualified from providing any health service for five years. He was also ordered to pay costs.