A PHARMACIST wrote out a prescription for Codeine after he was threatened as he put out the bins, a court heard.

Locum pharmacist wrote out a prescription for the opiate pain killer while working at the Boots store in Marlborough.

Lawyers for Ariyan Hassan, 27, claim he was threatened by an unknown man while he was putting the bins out outside his home.

Martin Hadley, defending, told Swindon Magistrates’ Court last week: “He’s challenged by an individual who says get me this stuff or else.

“It’s not duress because he’d got plenty of time to run – run to the police - in the intervening period. He knows he’s been a fool.

“What he has done is write a prescription. It’s almost childlike in the way that it is drawn. He writes a prescription and it’s a private prescription returnable on Saturday. The significance of that is he isn’t in the pharmacy on that day.

“He’s hoping – his plan was – that the person would come into collect the prescription and because of it being poorly written out, because they are quantities that would raise suspicion with any reasonable pharmacist, he was hoping that the person would either be refused and or the police called.”

Mr Hadley said his client would suffer serious consequences as a result of pleading guilty to writing the fraudulent prescription. After four years of university and further training on the job, he could be struck off by the pharmacists’ professional body.

The advocate told magistrates that pharmacists suffered threats and even actual violence. Hassan himself was said to have recently been stabbed with a needle.

Mr Hadley summarised a reference from his client’s employer, an agency that hired locum pharmacists. The boss described Hassan as a “good all-round pharmacist”, that it had come as a shock to learn his employee was in trouble and he was “honest, polite and a pleasure to speak to”.

Prosecutor Elizabeth Cox said the defendant’s version of events was not accepted by the Crown. It was suggested the motive could be financial.

Magistrates set the case down for a Newton Hearing, where a bench will hear the facts of the case and decide the basis on which to sentence Hassan. The matter will be heard on July 30 at Swindon Magistrates’ Court.

Hassan, of Southgate, Enfield, pleaded guilty to making a false prescription for a drug.