Belfast pharmacist Gerard Cullinan has pleaded guilty to making illegal supplies of co-codamol and fentanyl without a prescription over a period of several years.

Yesterday (April 18) Mr Cullinan appeared at Belfast Crown Court with his solicitor for an arraignment hearing during which he entered a guilty plea on the charge of illegally supplying the drugs from Castlereagh Pharmacy in East Belfast. The fentanyl charge concerns supplies made on dates between January 2018 and December 2019, while the co-codamol charge concerns a longer period from January 2017 to June 2020. 

He also pleaded guilty to five additional counts concerning the failure to keep a record of the following drugs on the premises: morphine, morphine sulphate, methylphenidate, tapentadol, fentanyl and oxycodone.

Separately, he also entered guilty pleas to the same charges on behalf of Castlereagh Pharmacy, the company of which he is director. 

A plea hearing has been scheduled for June 4. Judge Gordon Kerr KC ordered probation offers to write a pre-sentence report ahead of the hearing, and also asked Mr Cullinan’s defence team to provide trading accounts covering the last three years as the court’s only disposal option is to impose a monetary penalty.  

Castlereagh Pharmacy’s latest accounts show the company had a net book value of £216,488 and total net assets of £892,037 as of April 30 last year.

The Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland first imposed restrictions on Mr Cullinan’s license in July 2020 and has extended these interim condition orders several times since. On March 21 this year it implemented a further extension stating the restrictions should remain in place until further review.

The interim order states that Mr Cullinan must not work unsupervised, including preparing and dispensing prescriptions, and cannot act as a superintendent pharmacist or responsible pharmacist. All operational matters except for employment, the payment of bills and PAYE matters are to be entrusted to a superintendent pharmacist whose appointment must be approved by the regulator.

Among the numerous restrictions on his licence are ones stating that he must not order prescription medicines on behalf of the pharmacy, that he must complete a maintain a log of every controlled drug he supplies and that he must stay away from the pharmacy outside its usual trading hours.