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A pharmacist who was convicted of attempted child sexual offences has been removed from the register.

A General Pharmaceutical Council fitness-to-practise (FtP) committee hearing concluded Tony Martin O’Neill’s convictions were “matters of the utmost seriousness” and brought the pharmacy profession into disrepute.

O’Neill, who initially registered with the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain in July 2003 before transferring to the Council’s register under registration number 2056190, was convicted at Teesside Crown Court on April 9, 2025, of attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child and attempting to meet a child following sexual grooming.

On May 27, 2025, he was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment suspended for 24 months, 200 hours of unpaid work within 12 months, given a 10-year sexual harm prevention order and put on the sex offenders register for 10 years.

The committee heard that between February 8 and 21, 2024, O’Neill tried to engage in “sexual communications” with a child under 16 “without reasonable belief they were 16 or over” before attempting to meet them.

It transpired the child was a police decoy although O’Neill was not aware of that. He was voluntarily absent from the committee’s hearing. It said his fitness to practise was impaired “by reason of his conviction on grounds of both public protection and the wider public interest”.

“These convictions relate to sexual communications and sexual grooming of a child. Mr O’Neill thought that he was communicating with a child and the nature of his communications make it clear that he intended to meet the child for purposes of engaging in activity of a sexual nature,” the committee said.

It warned the public needed “to be protected from the risk” that O’Neill might repeat his behaviour since “the practice of pharmacy may frequently involve contact with children”.

The committee considered his offences took place in his private life and did “not relate to his pharmacy practice” but ruled he breached the standard covering professional behaviour, including maintaining personal and professional boundaries which “is not limited to the working day”.

The committee also took into consideration that “the offences occurred over a short period within a pharmacy career of more than 20 years in which there have not been previous regulatory concerns”.

However, it said: “This is not a case where supervision or training is required to remediate failings. Conditions would not be workable and in any event, would be wholly insufficient to mark the seriousness of the matter so as to maintain public confidence in the pharmacy profession and to declare and uphold professional standards.”