Baljinder Singh Gill, registration number 2036767, has received a six-month suspension after being convicted of “stalking” a colleague “without fear, alarm or distress”, General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) hearing documents have revealed.
In a remote hearing on July 3-4, a fitness-to-practise (FtP) committee heard that he was convicted at Hull Magistrates Court in September 2022 and handed a “10-year restraining order” along with an “18-month community service order”.
Read more: Woman jailed for ‘catfishing’ as male pharmacist in stalking campaign
According to the document, Gill pleaded guilty to stalking a colleague and ex-girlfriend by making “multiple calls to her, [sending] her messages and emails and [placing] a tracking device on her vehicle to monitor her movements” between December 2021 and May 2022.
He “knew or ought to have known” that these actions “amounted to the harassment” of his colleague, it said.
The regulator acknowledged that Gill “made a self-declaration of the conviction as per the council’s standards” as well as his “genuine and heartfelt remorse for his conviction and his evident shame for what he had done”.
Read more: ‘Harass, intimidate, retaliate’: ‘Vile’ pharmacist suspended for sexual assault
But it stressed that the colleague was a “junior” employee at his workplace, meaning that “there would have been a power imbalance between them”.
Gill notified the GPhC in September 2022 that there were “ongoing criminal proceedings against him” and in November that year it received an “anonymous referral of concern” from a member of the public detailing his sentence for “stalking and harassing a previous female colleague”, it said.
£50k loan
The committee heard that Gill had “entered into a romantic relationship” with his pharmacist colleague in early 2021 while he was “working as a superintendent” in a prison pharmacy, which lasted until October of that year.
During that time, he “provided her with gifts and with a large sum of money” but following the end of their relationship, he “sent several texts and emails [among other things] requesting repayment”, the document said.
According to a police statement setting out Gill’s conviction, his “behaviour escalated” and he “[planted] a tracking device” on his colleague’s vehicle, it added.
Read more: Pharmacist who groped colleague in Madame Tussauds FtP restored
This prompted her to report the issue to the police, who examined his phone and “subsequently charged” him, the council heard.
Gill was given a 10-year restraining order and an 18-month community service order including 25 rehabilitation activity days, 200 hours of unpaid work and a £405 victim surcharge, the document said.
Read more: ‘Exceptional’ pharmacist suspended over cocaine and ecstasy confession
Giving evidence at this month’s hearing, he explained that he had lent his colleague £50,000 “to pay for her mortgage” and the harassment charge “arose because having come to his senses, he was contacting her to try to get his money back”, it added.
However, Gill told the committee that he “now understood that the money was gone” and said that if that was the cost for him and his wife “to move on with his life”, he would regard it as a “training cost”, it said.
“Horrid” actions
Gill “apologised to the committee and to the wider pharmacy profession” for his actions, saying they were “out of character” and had “potentially brought the profession into disrepute”.
He admitted that at the time he did not “think about how his conduct might affect” his colleague, adding that he now realised “the horrid nature of [his] actions” and their effect on her, “someone [he’d] cared about”, it heard.
Gill told the committee that he “deeply regretted his behaviour”, adding that “he was sorry from the bottom of his heart” and was “not in any rush to return to pharmacy”, despite wishing to come back at some point “in the future, when he feels ready”.
Read more: Pharmacy tech suspended over romance with prisoner patient
“He had been a pharmacist for 35 years and this was his first involvement in anything criminal,” the committee heard.
The regulator accepted that Gill’s conviction “only related to one person with whom he had initially been in a consensual relationship”.
And it acknowledged that he had “demonstrated a sufficient degree of insight and reflection into his conviction and his conduct”, adding that he “accepted fulsomely in his evidence that what he had done was wrong [and] inappropriate”.
“Too ashamed”
But the GPhC stressed that Gill “failed to lead by example” in that his colleague was his junior at the pharmacy, which “he owned at the time”.
He admitted that he “would have found it very hard to obtain testimonials or references from friends or family as they would have asked why he wanted them, and he was too ashamed to tell people”, it added.
The regulator determined that Gill’s conviction “was not fundamentally incompatible with being a registered professional and therefore a removal order would be unduly punitive”.
Read more: Pharmacist struck off over forgery and fake opioid scripts
And it added that the conduct that “led to his conviction for stalking was highly unlikely to be repeated”.
It concluded that Gill would “benefit” from a “period of six months’ suspension” as a “reminder of the expectations imposed upon him to behave appropriately at all times and not just when at work”.
Read the determination in full here.
