A pharmacy technician who attempted to smuggle cannabis and other items into a prison has been suspended for 10 months with a review at a General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) fitness-to-practise (FtP) committee hearing last month (August 20).

Elena Turner, registration number 5107593, was convicted on September 11 last year at St Albans Crown Court after pleading guilty to smuggling 11 grams of cannabis, a phone SIM card and three SD cards on a visit to an inmate at HMP The Mount in Bovingdon, Hertfordshire, according to the hearing document.

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She was given a prison sentence of nine months, suspended for eighteen months until June 2025, it said.

The regulator accepted that Turner “had the good sense to plead guilty to these matters” in court, was “open and honest” at the hearing and had “shown remorse and some insight”.

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And Turner said she “knew at the time of her offending that it was wrong but felt pressurised by the inmate to bring the items into the prison” and she was “scared of him, as he knew where she lived”.

But the committee stressed that “this was a serious conviction” and “the offending was planned and premeditated”.

 

Sniffer dog

 

Turner visited the prison on January 2 2023 where a drug detection dog flagged her so she was led to “a private searching area” and asked if she was carrying anything prohibited, according to the document.

She denied it and “consented to a physical search during which it was found that a package had been concealed in her cleavage” that had the cannabis, SIM and memory cards in it and she was arrested, it said.

The committee shared the sentencing remarks of the judge from the criminal trial, who said that Turner had struck up “something of a relationship” with the prisoner, repeatedly visited him and was persuaded to smuggle the items into prison for him.

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The judge added that “everybody agrees you hadn’t met him before you went to visit him in prison” and stressed that drugs and mobile phones in prison “are a real problem” as it allows inmates “to continue to commit crime while they are in custody”.

Turner was dismissed from her job following her conviction and since November 2023, “she has been working as a receptionist/prescriptions clerk in a GP surgery to keep her professional knowledge up to date”, the document said.

She is currently on maternity leave with “plans to go back to work in February 2025” and has “cut all ties” with the man since her conviction, the committee heard.

 

“In a much better place”

 

The committee recognised that Turner attended the hearing and had engaged with it “throughout”, including by providing a written reflection on her misconduct.

She apologised “for breaking [the] code of conduct” and revealed she is “in a much better place now” and has “completely changed [her] life for the better”, with her relationship with her mother “improved” as well as having “the support of her full family”.

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It also detailed how she had worked in pharmacy since she was 16 and “worked extremely hard to complete all [her] qualifications” as she wants to teach her son to “follow your dreams” as “having a career is the way forward in life”.

She added that if the committee would “consider allowing [her] to keep [her] license to practice and allow [her] to come back to the pharmacy world”, this would financially benefit her and her son to “live independently and provide him with the necessities in life”.

 

“FtP history”

 

But the committee said that she had “not supplied any testimonials or character references” and there was “no evidence of remediation beyond what was required” as part of her sentence.

It added that Turner had “breached a fundamental principle of the profession to be honest and trustworthy” but had not undertaken any courses or training “around professionalism, ethics and honesty” since her conviction or “provided sufficient reflections”.

The committee said that her understanding of “the impact her behaviour would have had on members of the public and fellow professionals” had not been addressed as her written reflection “was very brief”.

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The reflection focused “on herself and her wish to continue to practise as a pharmacy technician” as well as “how it will benefit her and her son financially if she is permitted to keep her registration”, it found.

“She did not mention the effect her behaviour could have had on the inmate if she had managed to smuggle the goods into prison and the wider prison population, it added.

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The committee said that the risk of repetition “is probably lower” now that Turner has a family but was “not satisfied” that her offences would not be repeated, stressing that “public confidence in the profession would be seriously damaged” if so.

Meanwhile, the committee also heard that Turner had previous “FtP history” as she was convicted in June 2021 for drink driving.

 

“Too lenient”

 

The regulator concluded that Turner’s “fitness to practise is impaired by reason of [her] conviction” and that it “is necessary to mark the seriousness of what has occurred” to maintain public confidence and make “clear to other professionals what is expected”.

It said that a suggested four-month suspension was “too lenient” and instead chose a ten-month suspension with a review “towards the end” to “send out a message” to pharmacy professionals to “uphold standards and be law abiding, even outside of the workplace”.

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The suspension will allow Turner to reflect on the committee’s findings and the impact of her conduct, it added.

The reviewing committee is “likely to be assisted by” a “detailed written reflection” around professional standards, “evidence of comprehensive CPD and training…regarding honesty, ethics and professionalism”, and “testimonials and character references”, it said.

Read the determination in full here.