Leanne Marie Richardson, registration number 5042697, has been struck off by the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) after being convicted of importing “almost 22kg” of cocaine “with a street value of approximately £594,000” into the UK.
In a hearing this month (November 6-7), the GPhC’s fitness-to-practise (FtP) committee heard that pharmacy technician Richardson was convicted at Liverpool Crown Court in March this year, before being sentenced in June to three years and nine months in prison.
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According to the hearing document, Richardson went on holiday to Jamaica with her then-partner, who told her that they “would leave their suitcases lightly filled and marked with a ribbon” on their journey home.
Upon returning to the UK, the suitcases were found to contain “almost 22kg of cocaine of high purity” - and “while [Richardson’s] partner accepted the bulk of the responsibility, the jury considered that [she] had been a willing participant and found her guilty”, it added.
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The GPhC recognised that Richardson was “of previous good character” and that this was “one incident in an otherwise unblemished career”.
But it stressed that her “good character of some 11 years had been forfeited by such a serious offence” and noted the “nature of the misconduct”, which was “importation of a significant amount of a Class A drug of high purity and high street value”.
“A limited role”
The regulator acknowledged that Richardson’s offence was “one where she had a limited role, not initiating or organising the offence but participating at a later stage”.
And it said that Richardson told the GPhC that despite being found guilty, she still maintained that she “was not aware of the situation [she] had been involved in until [she] was stopped at Manchester Airport”.
She also told the regulator that she is “fully aware of the severity of such a conviction and the impact that has on [the] profession” and that she is “willing to be removed from the register”, according to the document.
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However, it said that the offence “was a deliberate action…and involved some degree of planning” and that “the level of harm and impact on others would have been substantial had the suitcases not been intercepted”.
The regulator also referenced the transcript from the sentencing hearing, which stated that Richardson “had tied ribbons to the suitcases and taken pictures and sent them in order that they could be identified, so that the cocaine could be placed in the suitcases”.
“Extremely limited” insight
The committee also heard that Richardson’s insight was “extremely limited” and that “despite having been found guilty after a jury trial, she continued to deny the offence”.
It said that she had not displayed “any understanding of the impact of her actions and her conviction on the public” and that it felt she “had not remediated by demonstrating regret or taking steps to prevent a repetition, for example through reflective practice”.
Richardson “had pointed out aspects of her personal circumstances, but these were to excuse her conduct”, it added.
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“As a pharmacy technician, [she] must have understood the wider public impact that her actions could have had leading to the distribution of a significant amount of a Class A drug among the public,” the regulator said, adding that this was a “serious departure” from her “expected professional judgement”.
The GPhC determined that Richardson’s fitness to practise is “currently impaired on public protection and public interest grounds” and that removal from the register is the “only appropriate and proportionate outcome”.
It concluded that her conviction, “together with the sentence and the need for public protection and the public interest”, made her conduct “fundamentally incompatible with being a registered professional”.
Read the determination in full here.
