Addiction counsellor jailed for forging prescriptions
An addiction counsellor who forged prescriptions in order to help drug addicts "get clean" so they could be admitted to a treatment centre he was the manager of, has been sentenced to six months in jail at Letterkenny District Court.
Last Thursday Liam Rooney from Blanchardstown in Dublin was the assistant director and manager of the St James's Camino Residential Centre in Enfield, Co Meath, which provides treatment for drug addicts.
Judge Conal Gibbons heard that Rooney was charged with possession of prescription drugs, valium and painkillers, for sale or supply and forging prescriptions in County Mayo earlier in the week.
Garda Olga Tracey told the court she arrested Rooney after receiving a call from Flynn’s Pharmacy who claimed they believed they had been passed a false prescription in Claremorris, Co Mayo, on Wednesday evening.
Officers followed Rooney's car to the McWilliam Park Hotel and following a search of his hotel room, garda discovered 240 painkiller tablets worth more than €600 as well as 12 false prescriptions.
Rooney, a qualified addiction counsellor, had been working at the centre for the past seven years.
Defence solicitor Patsy Gallagher told the court that Rooney helped drug addicts detox “outside of office hours”.
He said addicts from Dublin came to Rooney as they could not get treatment and knew he could help them.
Mr Gallagher said his client paid for the drugs with his own money and gave them to addicts for free.
“The HSE will not treat the addicts unless they detox. They are given no assistance except for the help they get from my client,” he said.
Under cross-examination, Rooney described what he was doing outside of his job at the centre as a “pre-entry course”, adding the centre's founder, Fr Denis Laverty, knew nothing about it or two previous convictions he had for the same offence.
Describing the situation as “absurd” the judge commended Rooney for his honesty but said he took the matter very seriously as the defendant had taken on a role of a medical practitioner, which was not qualified for, and could have resulted in serious harm or even death.
“Just because you are well-intentioned does not mean you are doing no harm. You could have killed someone because of the best of your intentions,” he said.
He sentenced Rooney to six months' imprisonment but released him on his own bond of €500 pending an appeal.
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Wednesday 08 February 2012
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