Bay of Plenty private ambulance operators accused of altering records to obtain morphine and fentanyl

From left: Craig Lohgan and Rebecca Couchman, who both also use the surname McLaren, face multiple charges linked to when they operated a private ambulance in the Bay of Plenty.

Records from a private ambulance service show paramedics claimed to have treated a patient who had been dead for three years.

Another form suggested a female rider was treated by the paramedics at a horse riding event, despite her having given birth by C-section just weeks earlier and not being in any condition to ride.

The Crown pointed to these records in its opening of a jury trial in Tauranga where a couple, who ran a private ambulance service in the Bay of Plenty, are accused of deceiving doctors to obtain morphine and fentanyl.

The bulk of the charges specify allegations of doctoring and reproducing records to account for the large amounts of drugs they procured.

Rebecca Couchman and Craig Lohgan, who also used the surname McLaren, collectively face 35 charges, related to their operation of EMC Ambulance, or Emergency Medical Care Ltd, out of Kawerau.

They both deny all charges, which include forgery, obtaining by deception, using an altered document, and administering and possessing a class B controlled drug.

Lohgan is being referred to as “Mr McLaren” during the trial, but is referred to as Lohgan on the charge list.

Craig Lohgan and Rebecca Couchman (R), who also use the surname McLaren, collectively face 35 charges related to using altered documents to obtain class B controlled drugs morphine and fentanyl, when they operated a private ambulance.

‘Experienced paramedics’

Crown prosecutor Laura Clay said the pair held themselves out to be “experienced paramedics” and deceived a number of doctors.

They allegedly used their relationships with these doctors, who were appointed as medical directors, to procure “thousands” of ampoules of morphine and fentanyl.

“Not only did they procure those drugs, they also took it upon themselves to administer the medication to vulnerable members of the public,” Clay said.

Clay explained to the jury that up until 2020, anyone could set up a private ambulance service. They primarily contracted services to private event organisers, including equestrian and motocross events, and alarm companies.

A private ambulance could not respond to 111 calls, nor was it entitled to subsidised medicines.

The Crown claims Couchman and Lohgan managed to get “standing orders” that allowed them to administer controlled drugs, such as fentanyl and morphine.

The Crown claims the defendants “provided themselves” with certification, and managed to “deceive” medical professionals into signing standing orders, based on their “incorrect” belief that they were qualified.

Despite this, the defendants were “covered” by the standing orders, so only face charges of illegally administering class B drugs for a limited period the Crown says fell outside the time the standing orders were in place.

The bulk of the charges they face relate to reproducing “patient report forms” and the reporting of these on the controlled drug register.

The Crown gave examples of forms that related to things that happened years before the dates on the form, including one that outlined the treatment of a man who had in fact died three years before the treatment date.

Another was a form for a rider who had fallen from her horse at a Tauranga Racecourse event in February 2016.

The form detailed her injuries and treatment, which included a 5mcg dose of morphine. The Crown says that was the “original” form.

The Crown says another form under the same patient name, with similar details was dated December 1, 2017, and indicated a 6mcg morphine dose and two further doses being “drawn and dumped”.

The horse rider would give evidence she was treated in 2016 but was just a few weeks postpartum on the 2017 date.

“There is no way she was riding horses on the 1st of December, 2017,” Clay said.

Clay said there had been about 80 patient report forms provided to a doctor, who has interim name suppression and was a former medical director of the private ambulance service, as part of an audit.

The audit was triggered, the Crown says, when a locum pharmacist at a Kawerau pharmacy became suspicious about the quantity of morphine and fentanyl being supplied to the private ambulance.

The Crown says the patient report forms, alongside the controlled drugs register, are a “falsity”.

They were created, and provided to the then-medical director, “for the express purpose of creating a guise as to what has occurred for the significant quantity of controlled drugs received by the defendants”.

The Crown case is that the false document trail was created to satisfy the audit and keep the “supply chain of the controlled drugs flowing”.

The Crown says the pair also reproduced false forms, with unauthorised sign-off from a medical director, to receive controlled drugs from medical wholesaler Onelink.

‘Forged’ framed university qualifications were a ‘vision board’, defence says

The couple are also charged with creating forged university qualifications – framed certificates police found hanging in their home during a search warrant, purporting to be from overseas universities.

The defence accepts the documents were false, but Couchman’s lawyer Martin Hine said, in his defence opening statement, that it wasn’t used to deceive anyone, and was never “proffered or relied upon”.

“Ms Couchman didn’t have a Bachelor of Science in Paramedic Studies from the University of Limerick,” Hine said.

The framed certificate was created by her as a “vision board”, formed around the belief that if you can conceive of it, you can achieve it, and it was an “aspirational aid”, not intended to be “used or acted upon”.

Hine said the trial was a “complex” case, not because of the facts, but because of the overlaying law.

This included aspects that related to the defendants being charged as “parties” to the various offences. He also covered aspects related to the defendants’ intent, and pointed to questions around how the various documents had actually been used.

Hine said there had never been deception in the application to medical wholesaler Onelink, and had been “no false representation” or intention to deceive.

“There was no knowledge the application forms contained any false material... nor was anyone actually deceived... the documents were exactly what they purported to be.”

Hine said the patient report forms the Crown says were reproduced in their efforts to procure drugs had been altered for “training purposes only”, and there was no evidence they had anything to do with acquiring controlled drugs.

Lohgan’s lawyer, Paul Devoy, did not make an opening statement.

The trial before Judge David Cameron is expected to go into next week.

Hannah Bartlett is a Tauranga-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She previously covered court and local government for the Nelson Mail, and before that was a radio reporter at Newstalk ZB.