Jail for contamination of drug packets

Christopher McGuire cost the manufacturers £2.4m and saved himself just £7 by placing strips of an anti-psychotic drug in empty packets of the painkiller and swapping them for new packets at pharmacies.

Sentencing him at Southwark Crown Court yesterday Judge Alistair McCreath told McGuire: “Your acts caused very considerable financial harm, amounting to well over £2m. The costs included recalling the product, destroying suspect stock, investigating the problem which you caused, returning new products to the market and handling the reputational damage caused by you.”

McGuire’s scheme involved asking for Nurofen Plus at a pharmacy counter and then attempting to pay for it with a card he knew would be declined. In doing this, he created sufficient distraction to discreetly swap the contaminated packet for the fresh one and walk away. His actions cost manufacturer Reckitt Benckiser £2.4m when the painkiller was recalled.

McGuire took 32 tablets of the drug each day to feed his secret addiction. But after losing his job he struggled to pay for it.

Instead, the 31-year-old replaced empty packets with the Seroquel he was prescribed for schizophrenia, and the contaminated packs ended up in the hands of unsuspecting members of the public.

Peter Letham and Paul Connor swallowed the wrong tablets after Mr Letham’s wife, Jacqueline, bought what she thought was a 32-pack of Nurofen Plus in Bromley, south-east London. Both men experienced tiredness and dizziness.

Two other consumers realised the Nurofen Plus they had bought also contained Seroquel instead, but did not swallow any.

In a further incident, an assistant at a Beckenham pharmacy found Seroquel tablets inside a Nurofen Plus packet in the store.

McGuire, of Edzell Drive in Glasgow, was tracked down to his landlady’s home in Swanley, Kent and charged with causing a public nuisance.

James Hasslacher, defending, said: “He’s the most remorseful that one could be, to know the effect of his crime.”