Brian Holder, jailed for trying to kill pharmacist in ambush, banned from medicine for life

A doctor who tried to kill a pharmacist for reporting his overprescribing, in an ambush attack using flowers and a knife, has been handed a lifetime ban from practising.

Accusations of overprescribing drugs ultimately resulted in a doctor’s attempt to ambush and kill a pharmacist.

A doctor who tried to kill a pharmacist for reporting his overprescribing, in an ambush attack using flowers and a knife, has been handed a lifetime ban from practising.

Former Reynella GP Brian Holder was jailed for 15 years for the October 2017 attack on a Port Lincoln pharmacist.

Now the South Australian Civil and Administrative Tribunal has banned the former doctor from practising for 25 years - the longest punishment of its kind ever handed down - after finding his conduct constituted professional misconduct of the most serious kind.

The ban means that Holder, 71, will never again practice medicine, due to his age.

He was found guilty of a charge of attempted murder in the Supreme Court in November 2018.

During sentencing, Justice Ann Vanstone said Holder had been prescribing high quantities of benzodiazepines and Panadeine Forte.

After the pharmacist reported Holder and her name was left on the complaint, Holder used a private investigator to track down her home address, then drove to Port Lincoln to confront her.

He approached the woman at her workplace, holding out flowers in one hand, and slashed her multiple times with the knife.

The woman was able to overpower him and Holder abandoned the attack.

“I have reached the conclusion that you are and will remain a dangerous man,” Justice Vanstone said.

An attempt by Holder in 2019 to have his sentence reduced was dismissed by the Court of Criminal Appeal.

In banning Holder, the tribunal reported Holder still showed no remorse or contrition and said it was “most concerned” Holder still had no insight into the wrongfulness of his prescribing actions and “still maintains his prescribing was appropriate”.

“There is no reason to think that he would change his ways if ever allowed to practise in the future,” it found.

“This respondent could never again be trusted with the responsibilities of a registered medical practitioner. The public, and other health practitioners should never again be put at serious risk from the respondent. It is appropriate to set a disqualification which makes it clear to everyone that his career as a medical practitioner is over.”

The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency supported the tribunal’s decision.

“A lifetime ban from treating the public underlines the seriousness of the matters considered by the tribunal and will keep the public safe,” agency chief executive Martin Fletcher said.