Paul Martin Gadsden, registration number 2053298, was issued a six-month suspension order by the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) following three criminal convictions, including for the assault of a police officer.
At hearings between July 13 and 15, the GPhC’s fitness-to-practise committee heard that Gadsden had pleaded guilty in 2022 to “persistently” using a public electronics communication network to cause “annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to another” and assaulting a police constable.
According to the hearing document, Gadsden was also found guilty the same year of using “threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour” towards a taxi driver.
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The committee acknowledged that Gadsden had self-reported the convictions and had admitted to the incident involving the taxi driver.
But it stressed that his convictions had been “harmful in nature”, and included homophobic abuse, kicking a police officer and threatening to kill a taxi driver.
Arrests and convictions
The GPhC heard that on May 31, 2021, Gadsden “repeatedly” called the police “to report four to six eggs smashed on his kitchen floor”.
Gadsden was told this was not an emergency, but continued to call 999, eventually becoming “verbally abusive” and making “homophobic comments” to staff in the control room.
A police report stated that Gadsden “made approximately 30 calls to police and continued to do so until police arrival” at his home, where he was arrested for misusing the 999 system.
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It said Gadsden became “increasingly agitated” as he was led to the police car, had “clearly been drinking” and “was shouting and swearing in the street”.
Gadsden was “verbally aggressive” to officers in the holding cell, it added, and then kicked an officer.
On April 22, 2022, Gadsden pleaded guilty at Poole Magistrates Court to using “a public electronic communications network for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to another”, and was fined £500, plus a surcharge of £55 to fund victim services and costs of £310.
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The same day, Gadsden also pleaded guilty to the assault of a police constable who had been “acting in the exercise of his functions as such a worker” and was fined £50.
And according to the police report summary of Gadsden’s third offence, he had threatened to kill and strangle a taxi driver on July 18, 2021.
The summary said the taxi driver told police he had been assaulted by Gadsden, who had grabbed a “charger cable from within the taxi and aggressively [approached]” the driver before “striking him multiple times with the cable”.
The driver also told police that Gadsden had said, “I’m going to kill you, I’m going to strangle your neck”, while “trying to get the charger cable over his head”.
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The police report said the assault was witnessed by someone sitting in the taxi at the time, as well as by an off-duty Thames Valley Police Officer who “intervened as the situation escalated”.
On September 16, 2022, Gadsden pleaded guilty at Poole Magistrates’ Court to using “threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour” intended to cause the victim “to believe that immediate unlawful violence would be used against him”, or to provoke the victim into using such violence against Gadsden.
Gadsden was fined £1,153 and ordered to pay £200 in compensation, a victim surcharge of £115 and costs of £650 to the Crown Prosecution Service.
“Challenging personal circumstances”
The committee noted that Gadsden “had been experiencing challenging personal circumstances” which had “placed him under stress” around the time of his first two offences.
It added that he had “suffered a bereavement” prior to the third conviction, and this “had impacted on his judgement”.
It also acknowledged that the events leading to the convictions occurred five years ago, with no further criminal conduct since, and that no concerns had been raised about Gadsden’s clinical practice as a pharmacist in the 25 years he has been registered.
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The regulator recognised that Gadsden had provided some character references that “spoke highly of his work as a pharmacist”.
And it said he had “expressed some remorse and embarrassment” during the hearing, and had “indicated he would act differently in future”.
“Not genuine remorse”
However, the committee found that Gadsden had shown “limited insight into his convictions”, which it said he demonstrated by losing his temper throughout the hearing.
It said Gadsden “had not shown genuine remorse or regret”, and that the apologies he did make were “all premised on the basis that he blamed others for causing him to lose his temper”.
It also noted that the three convictions showed Gadsden’s conduct had been “repeated”, with two convictions arising from incidents that took place on the same day and were connected, and the third arising from an incident that had occurred just under two months later.
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The committee concluded that Gadsden’s fitness to practise was “impaired on public protection and wider public interest grounds” and that a suspension order of six months was the appropriate sanction.
It stressed that it had “seriously considered whether he should be removed from the register altogether” but felt it would be “disproportionate” given the mitigating factors presented.
Read the determination in full here.
