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A nurse prescriber who committed “fraud pure and simple” by ordering prescription-only aesthetics products using the name of patients who had not requested the treatments has been fined £8,000 at Downpatrick Crown Court. 

Nichola Hawes of Bangor entered late guilty pleas to 24 counts of breaching the human medicines regulations and one fraud count, with a 20 per cent reduction applied to fines totalling £10,000 as mitigation for her plea. 

The Northern Ireland Government’s medicines regulatory group (MRG) first became aware of her activities in November 2022 when a former patient of hers received a consignment of medicines at their house that were in their name but which they had not requested.

Quantities of Ozempic pens, hydroxocobalamin and hyaluronidase were seized from Ms Hawes’ home address by the MRG. 

Sentencing judge Geoffrey Miller said yesterday (July 9) that although no patients had come to harm as a result of her actions, she had dishonestly gained an advantage over competitors in making sure she had a “ready supply of POMs” for which she could “charge a significant mark-up”.

For example, she charged between £140 and £250 for Ozempic pens after buying them in for £75.

The judge found she had bypassed the “long-standing principle” that a pharmacist should have “the opportunity to assess the clinical appropriateness of a prescribed medication for a patient” as the products she ordered from a nearby pharmacy were not intended for the people in whose names she had written the prescriptions.

Further, she had “instructed her legal team to challenge those witnesses [who had testified as being inappropriately prescribed the drugs in question] and effectively accuse them of lying when it was, she who was acting deceitfully”.

Peter Moore, senior medicines enforcement officer at the MRG, said she had “unlawfully by-passed the regulated system, put in place to ensure the integrity of the medicines supply chain”.

“Today’s conviction sends a clear message that there are significant consequences for those who choose to act outside the legal and regulated system,” Mr Moore added.

Read more: Salon owner fined over £3k for unlawful possession of weight loss drugs