Iestyn Rhys Evans, registration number 2040505, has been struck off the professional register for stealing more than 400 diazepam and dihydrocodeine tablets to help him cope with depression.

Mr Evans took the drugs from the pharmacy where he worked over a period of nine months, the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) heard at a fitness-to-practise hearing on November 19.

And although Mr Evans had a "previously unblemished career", the GPhC ruled that his actions had struck "at the very heart of [the] trust and confidence the public places in the pharmacy profession".

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	Mr Evans removed "small quantities" of prescription medication from his pharmacy without detection by taking "odd cut sections of foil packs", the panel heard. The medication included diazepam, which Mr Evans said helped him "switch off and get off to sleep", as well as dihydrocodeine to treat "various aches and pains".

He also took the antidepressant barbiturate on one occasion after it was returned by a patient.

In September, Mr Evans referred himself to the GPhC on his doctor's advice for fear he was becoming addicted to prescription medication.

Medical assessments found there was no physical evidence of dependence, but doctors noted "the impact of depression" on Mr Evans, who was suffering from a "degree of stress".

In a written response to the GPhC investigation, Mr Evans admitted he had taken 168 diazepam tablets and 250 dihydrocodeine tablets from the pharmacy to help him through "money, relationship and work stresses".

"I would estimate that I self-administered between 10 and 14 dihydrocodeine [tablets] a week," he said. "I did not take it every night, but maybe half my nights were medicated."

Mr Evans said there had been a "gradual improvement" in his condition since last year, and that he was now "nine tenths of the way" to recovery. Friends also spoke "highly" of Mr Evans and said he was now returning to "the man they used to know prior to his becoming unwell".

The GPhC took "full account" of Mr Evans' depression and the stresses in his life, but argued that they did not "sufficiently and materially detract" from his culpability.

"If in the early stages of decline in his health he knew that diazepam was the correct treatment for his symptoms, then in our view he equally knew that he should be obtaining such medication through the proper channels," the GPhC fitness-to-practise committee said.

The GPhC ruled that it was both "necessary and proportionate" to remove Mr Evans from the professional register.

Read the full GPhC ruling here.