A MAN who changed a doctor’s prescription to include 20 tablets of the restricted drug Endone has been placed on a bond after being convicted of altering a prescription.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Brennan Lyle, 26, of North Street, Oberon, appeared before magistrate Michael Allen on March 6 to answer the charge of forging or altering a prescription for a restricted substance.
The court heard how Lyle fraudulently altered the prescription written by Dr Joomann Park, a medical practitioner at Bathurst Base Hospital, at around 6pm on December 9 last year.
Police facts tendered to the court told how Lyle was an in-patient at the hospital and was released late in the afternoon and, upon release, given a prescription for Apixaban (5mg) by Dr Park.
About 6.30pm on the same day, Lyle went to Matthews Pharmacy in George Street, spoke to the pharmacist and asked if he could borrow a pen.
The pharmacist obliged, giving Lyle a black pen, and Lyle walked out of the pharmacy.
While he was outside, the intern at the pharmacy, who also works at the Oberon pharmacy, had a conversation with Lyle.
The court heard she knew him and later confirmed with the pharmacist that he was a well-known substance abuser.
A short time later, Lyle returned to the pharmacy, walked up to the prescription counter and handed over a prescription.
The pharmacist looked at the script and immediately became suspicious. The script had been filled out for Apixaban in a felt tip pen, but underneath, in a different colour ink and type of pen, had been added: “Endone 5mg (20).”
Police said they believed the accused had used the black pen that had been lent to him to add the Endone to the script before presenting it.
The pharmacist declined to fill the script and Lyle left the pharmacy. The pharmacy kept the script.
The next morning, on December 10, the pharmacist contacted police and reported the matter. Police attended the pharmacy, took a report and took the original prescription.
Police from Oberon interviewed Lyle at his Oberon address on December 23 and in an electronically recorded interview, he made admissions to altering the script by adding Endone and then presenting it to the pharmacist.
Mr Allen convicted Lyle, placing him on a Section 9 bond for nine months.
