A pharmacy technician has been struck off the register for her conviction for “systematically smuggling” more than £40,000-worth of diazepam tablets.

Carla Louise Miles, registration number 5029710, stole 33,600 diazepam tablets over six months from Paydens Pharmacy in Ramsgate, Kent, the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) heard at a fitness-to-practise hearing on June 11. Ms Miles was sentenced at Canterbury Crown Court to 18 months’ imprisonment in June 2014 for the theft and supply of Class C drugs to a member of the public.

Ms Miles said she stole the drug to appease an unidentified man she claimed had threatened to harm her daughter, the regulator heard.

It accepted Ms Miles had pleaded guilty to the crimes in court, but stressed that her actions had been dishonest and premeditated. “That the registrant was not an innocent victim is probably indicated by the [prison] sentence”, the GPhC said.

The dispensing value of the stolen drugs was estimated to be between £744 and £1,096, although the street value “could apparently be as high as £42,000”, the regulator heard.

Ms Miles was “instrumental” in ordering "far greater supplies" of diazepam than the pharmacy required “so there was always a surplus [that] she could remove”, the GPhC heard. She “secretly entered” the pharmacy outside of working and permitted hours and then supplied the stolen diazepam to the “unknown individual” who Ms Miles claimed had threatened to harm her daughter.

Other allegations

The regulator also heard how Ms Miles had “removed an unknown quantity” of toilet rolls and shampoo from the pharmacy in June 2013. She had been suffering from “adverse physical or mental health” at the time, it noted.

The GPhC said it could not prove whether this incident had been dishonest, because it could not disprove her claim that she had intended to pay for the items at a later date.

The regulator noted a “polite and perhaps humble” letter Ms Miles had written to the GPhC, in which she referred to her diazepam thefts as “unforgivable mistakes" made "under duress".

But it concluded that Ms Miles’ conviction “undoubtedly” brought the profession into disrepute. That she had not attended the fitness-to-practise hearing meant she could not explain her actions to the regulator or “persuade us that she is now a reformed character”, it said.

The GPhC stressed Ms Miles’ behaviour that had led to the conviction was "fundamentally incompatible with continued registration”, and ruled to remove her from the register.

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