Pharmacy technician Sheree Danielle Ward, registration number 5102690, has been suspended from the register for six months after staff at HMP Five Wells found a “romantic” letter describing an escapist “made-up fantasy” in an inmate’s cell.
During a remote GPhC hearing from April 7-9, the regulator found that Ward - whose main role at the prison was as a substance misuse recovery worker - “exchanged letters of a personal and/or romantic nature with a patient of the pharmacy” over a period of a few weeks in early 2023.
“Initial concerns of a potential relationship between the registrant and [the patient] arose when a cell search was completed…and an anonymous love letter was found,” the GPhC added.
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During the prison’s internal investigation, Ward told staff that the patient initially wrote her a letter that she responded to, adding that the pair exchanged “maybe three or four” letters in total, it said.
Ward said that the letters included a “kind of romantic content…a sort of made-up fantasy, escapism kind of thing” and that the letters were the “extent of the relationship”.
She was “removed as an employee” from the prison on February 10 2023, the regulator added.
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It acknowledged that she “expressed embarrassment and remorse” over the incident and noted the “alleged difficulties” in her “working life when the conduct took place”.
It also heard matters relating to her “physical and mental health” as well as “family issues” in private.
But the GPhC stressed that Ward “knew or ought to have known” that the patient was “vulnerable…in that he was a prisoner”.
It added that she “breached the trust and confidence” of her employer by failing to report her “inappropriate relationship with a patient”.
“Manipulated me expertly”
Ward told the GPhC that responding to the patient’s letter was “a huge error on [her] part” – “I don’t wish to excuse my behaviour in any way but there were a number of factors that influenced this”, she added.
“The working environment at the prison was difficult to manage,” she said.
“The health professionals I worked alongside did not share the same patient-centred ethos as me and I found myself witnessing incidents that I felt were unacceptable,” she added.
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“I found myself withdrawing from my colleagues…and often found myself left out of social situations,” she said.
Ward told the GPhC that she had “fallen into” the situation despite it being explained to her “when [she] joined the prison that residents can be very manipulative and will seek out vulnerable people to exploit”.
She said that descriptions of the patient as “vulnerable” was “an egregious misrepresentation” as he had “been in custody for almost a decade for an extremely violent crime” and used her “as entertainment”.
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“I am not attempting to suggest I am blameless in this situation – however this man knew exactly what he was doing… [and] he manipulated me expertly,” she added.
“I am not a predator trying to exert control over a vulnerable man,” she added.
She stressed that there was “never any physical contact between” her and the patient “at all”.
“I was wrong”
“This situation and its aftermath have been horrendous” – “the shame and embarrassment I have felt around this has led to me at times not wanting to leave the house for fear of running into my old colleagues,” Ward said.
“I am imploring that you please do not take my registration away, I take my work very seriously and I genuinely feel I have a lot to offer the community as a pharmacy technician,” she told the GPhC.
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“I have been in pharmacy for 14 years and have worked hard…I want to take this as an opportunity to learn and grow and recognise vulnerabilities in myself and find a healthy way to address them,” she said.
“I recognise that I was wrong and am deeply ashamed of my actions – please don’t let my foolish error in judgement define the rest of my life,” she added.
“Lack of respect”
The GPhC admitted that Ward “provided some reflections into the conduct”, which she said “was never [her] intention”.
But it found that they focused “primarily on [her] own difficulties and not the impact her behaviour could have had on [the patient]”.
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The regulator stressed that Ward engaged in the “inappropriate relationship” despite previous training from the prison on “how to report personal relationships, conflicts of interest or concerning behaviours”.
It added that this indicated “that training may have a limited impact in the future”.
“By engaging in the letter exchange with [the patient], the registrant showed [him] a lack of respect and did not safeguard his dignity,” it stressed.
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“The inappropriate relationship was stopped at an early stage by chance because it was discovered by prison staff, not because the registrant put a stop to it,” the GPhC added.
The committee decided that a suspension “for a period of six months is appropriate and proportionate to mark the seriousness of the registrant’s actions”.
“The suspension order will be reviewed prior to its expiry,” it added.
