Pharmacist jailed for `brazen' script fraud

By Court Reporter
A Mount Maunganui pharmacist found guilty of fraudulently claiming medical costs and dispensing fees has been jailed for 15 months and ordered to pay back more than $14,000.
Heather Burton, 46, owner, managing director and head pharmacist at Central Parade Pharmacy since 1998, was sentenced in Tauranga District Court yesterday but was granted leave to apply for home detention.
After a three-week trial in November, a jury found Burton guilty of 30 counts of using a document with attempt to defraud, 19 counts of using a document for pecuniary advantage and nine counts of forgery related to claims made between January 2000 and November 2004.
The charges carried a maximum of seven years' imprisonment.
The court was told that Burton systematically claimed dispensing fees for medicines not collected and in some cases not even dispensed, relabelled some uncollected unexpired medicines and returned them to the shelves then dispensed them to other patients.
Burton was thereby claiming dispensing fees twice.
Between May and November 2004, she also claimed dispensing fees for medicines she stated were dispensed weekly but were collected monthly and/or on a three-monthly basis.
Between April and September 2004 she altered doctors' scripts by overwriting the instructions to support some of her false claims.
Crown Prosecutor Chris Gudsell called for a hefty prison sentence given the significant abuse of trust by Burton's taking from the public purse, through her ripping off a honesty-based system that relied on the ethical practices of the pharmacist.
Mr Gudsell said her actions were premeditated and in many ways sophisticated acts of fraud that had gone undetected for four years and as a result public confidence in her profession had now been eroded by her actions.
Her lawyer, Rachael Adams, had argued at trial that Burton's actions arose from honest mistakes and misunderstandings about the correct claiming procedures, plus some slip-ups with paperwork on her client's part, not fraud.
Ms Adams said as well as her previous good record, a significant mitigating factor was her offer to pay $14,707.35 reparation in full yesterday amid negotiations to sell the pharmacy to someone else.
Judge Thomas Ingram told Burton it was clear, given the large number of testimonials given to the court, she was well regarded in the community.
He said her conviction was likely to remain a stain on her record that could never be expunged and the effects on her, her family and her profession were significant.
Burton's conviction meant her career had been effectively destroyed, he said.
But, Judge Ingram said that while Burton had been assessed as at low risk of reoffending, the community deserved protection from financial predators such as her.
He said her offending had been brazen, calculated and "struck at the very heart of the doctor-pharmacist relationship" and the core of our health system.
"In terms of the forgeries, it required the services of a hand-writing expert to unravel."
Judge Ingram said he would give Burton some credit for her previous clean report, her long background of generosity to the community and reparation payment but there was a need to send a clear deterrent message to others in her profession.
Outside court, Heather Burton's husband, Glenn Burton, told the Bay of Plenty Times that he and his eldest of four children, Richard, who accompanied him to court, were still coming to terms with his wife's imprisonment.
"There is no doubt it has huge implications for our family," he said.
Mr Burton said his wife's imprisonment was not the end of the matter as a Health Practitioners' Committee inquiry was still in progress and the matter of whether she was to be struck off the Pharmacists' register was still to be resolved.
The business side of the pharmacy is still undecided. Talks with the Bay of Plenty District Health Board and HealthPAC about the transfer of contracts are continuing.
Mr Burton said he wanted to acknowledged the fantastic support he and his wife had received during the past two years and said it was important to them that continuity of service for the pharmacy's 5000 patients and employment for pharmacy staff is maintained.