Aiden Anthony Graham, registration number 5158, has been struck off by the Pharmaceutical Society Northern Ireland (PSNI) over the theft of “around 25,000” diazepam tablets that he “unlawfully obtained” from the pharmacy he worked at.
At a hearing on April 16, the PSNI’s statutory committee heard that Graham was convicted at Ballymena Magistrates’ Court in May 2025 of the unlawful possession of a Class C controlled drug and the theft of “diazepam tablets of value belonging to MediCare Pharmacy”.
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He then received a community service order requiring him to perform “unpaid work for 200 hours” last August, the hearing document said.
The regulator recognised that Graham had “engaged in and cooperated with the regulatory process”, “attended the regulatory hearing” and “through his counsel took a realistic approach to the likely sanction in this case”.
But it stressed that the misconduct occurred over “a prolonged period of time, approximately three years”, and “involved misappropriating approximately 25,000 diazepam tablets during this period”.
“Abused his position”
The PSNI said that between January 1, 2021 and March 21, 2024, while Graham was working as a pharmacist and pharmacy practice manager for MediCare Pharmacy in Ballymena, he “abused his position” to “unlawfully” obtain the prescription-only and Class C controlled drug diazepam.
It added that he obtained the drug “for [his] own or another’s use” and “without a valid prescription, without making a record of the supply and in circumstances where the supply was not clinically appropriate”.
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It also noted that the misconduct took place while Graham held “the position of responsible pharmacist in charge of a retail pharmacy business”.
The committee heard that the medicines were obtained in “significant” quantities and “in such circumstances that it could not have been only for [his] own personal use”.
It heard he had therefore “caused, allowed or permitted the sale, supply, distribution or diversion of diazepam for use by another or others”.
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The PSNI said the misconduct was discovered when the Medicines Regulatory Group (MRG) noticed “anomalies” for diazepam 5mg tablets at MediCare Pharmacy, and “attended at and inspected” the pharmacy on March 20, 2024.
The MRG “established that more diazepam 5mg tablets had been purchased by the pharmacy than had been supplied” through NHS or private prescriptions - and found that “25,086 diazepam 5mg tablets” were “unaccounted for” between January 1, 2021 and March 20, 2024.
After an interview with MRG officers on May 13, 2024, Graham “accepted responsibility for the unaccounted for diazepam and admitted that he had taken them for personal use”, the regulator said.
“Expressed remorse”
The committee noted that Graham had “worked as a pharmacist from 2011 and had not been otherwise involved in any other criminal or regulatory misconduct”.
He also “made early admissions in the criminal investigation”, it said, and “accepted” that the admitted facts “amounted to misconduct and that his fitness to practise was impaired”.
And it added that he had “apologised and expressed remorse concerning his actions and the impact they have had on the reputation of the pharmacy profession”.
“Premeditated, prolonged, persistent”
But the regulator highlighted that actions were “dishonest” and that “his dishonesty conviction arose out of illegal actions which were premeditated, prolonged and persistent”.
“Some of the diazepam was diverted in some way to other persons,” it said, “and his actions gave rise to the potential for harm to persons”.
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It added that Graham “took some of the diazepam for his own use”, and “to the extent that it had the potential to cause impairment in his functioning and interfere with his professional practice”.
And it noted that there “remains a lack of demonstrable insight and no real evidence of any relevant acts of remediation”.
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The committee concluded “that the risk of recurrence remains high” and that “the wider public interest in [the] case dictated that there should be a finding of impairment”.
It also found that Graham’s “serious misconduct is fundamentally incompatible with being a registered professional”.
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The PSNI therefore decided that “in order to protect the public and maintain confidence in the profession”, his name “should be removed from the register”.
Read the determination in full here.
