A woman who tricked doctors into believing she was other patients in a scam get her hands on strong pain medication has avoided a prison sentence.
Roseann Reid deceived health professionals at a series of doctors’ practices across the north-east by assuming the identities of two women to fraudulently obtain their prescriptions for naproxen and dihydrocodeine.
The 50-year-old even went to a number of different pharmacies across Grampian to collect the drugs in a swindle that lasted more than two years.
Aberdeen Sheriff Cout heard that Reid managed to obtain pain pill prescriptions from doctors in Aberdeen, Peterhead, Banchory and Huntly.
The fraud even took Reid as far afield as Angus, where she got hold of drugs from a surgery in Montrose.
Patient never received her prescription
Fiscal depute Claire Stewart told the court at a previous hearing that one of the victims, a diabetes sufferer, knew Reid personally and at around the beginning of May 2021 she was further prescribed dihydrocodeine and naproxen.
The drugs were to be delivered to her local pharmacy, but the woman never received the text to say the drugs were ready for collection.
“She contacted the prescription line to reorder, which she did,” Ms Stewart said.
“On May 19 the accused attended Boots Pharmacy, Inverurie, and requested the prescription of the complainer, confirming the name and home address and correct contact details.
“The accused was given the prescription and left.
“When the complainer attended to pick up her prescription she was told that someone had collected it prior to her arrival.”
Reid was able to do this on numerous occasions before the pharmacy raised the alarm with the woman’s GP.
Accused claimed she had kidney stones
The fiscal depute told the court that Reid was also attending at various health centres, using the name of another woman, and claiming to have stomach pain and kidney stones.
She stated that she had a previous prescription for naproxen and told them that she had been prescribed 60 tablets of dihydrocodeine.
Reid managed to do this on 10 different occasions at doctors’ surgeries in Aberdeen, Peterhead, Banchory, Pitmedden, Huntly and Montrose.
In the dock, Reid pleaded guilty to one count of fraudulently obtaining medication from pharmacies in the north-east.
She also admitted a further charge of carrying out a fraudulent scheme by providing false details to obtain drugs from the doctors’ surgeries.
Legal prescription was ‘origin’ of addiction
Defence solicitor Emma Stewart told the court that her client had received two operations, following which she had been prescribed naproxen and dihydrocodeine.
“Ms Reid quickly became addicted to these medications,” the solicitor said.
“Her addiction became so strong that she behaved in the manner libelled and began pretending to be other people to obtain the drugs.”
Sheriff Lesley Johnston told Reid that she was aware that the “origin” of her addiction to the medications stemmed from when she had been first legally prescribed them.
“These offences do meet the custodial sentence threshold, there’s no doubt about that,” she said.
“But I do believe there are alternatives to a custodial sentence in your case.”
As an alternative to a prison sentence, Sheriff Johnston made Reid, of Hoy Place, Aberdeen, subject to a community payback order with supervision for 12 months and ordered her to carry out 120 hours of unpaid work.
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