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An Antrim pharmacist has been struck off following his conviction for stealing more than 25,000 diazepam pharmacists over a three-year period. 

Aiden Graham went before the Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland’s fitness to practise committee on April 16, having been convicted at Ballymena Magistrates’ Court in May 2025 and handed a 200-hour community service order. 

“Anomalies” were picked up by the Department of Health’s Medicines Regulatory Group (MRG) through the pharmacy’s controlled drugs reconciliation data.  

On March 20, 2024, MRG officers inspected the branch of Medicare Pharmacy where Mr Graham worked, and nine days later they arrived to seize records.

Their analysis of purchase and supply data showed that more diazepam 5mg tablets had been purchased than were dispensed via NHS or private prescriptions. There were 25,086 tablets unaccounted for. 

“What this effectively demonstrated was that diazepam 5mg tablets had been ordered into the pharmacy over about a three-year period, that these tablets were not on the premises, and the tablets had not been lawfully dispensed,” said the FtP committee. 

Mr Graham’s theft peaked in 2022, when he stole 12,385 diazepam tablets.  

Interviewed by MRG officers on May 13, 2024, Mr Graham accepted responsibility for the missing diazepam and “admitted that he had taken them for personal use”. 

The FtP committee said Mr Graham, a pharmacist manager employed at Medicare’s Ahoghill branch who frequently acted as responsible pharmacist, had “abused his position”.  

The committee also questioned Mr Graham’s assertion that the diazepam tablets were obtained for his own personal use, commenting that the drugs were ordered “in such quantities and in such circumstances that it could not have been only for your own personal use”.

It found that he had facilitated the sale, supply, distribution or diversion of diazepam for use by others. 

Mr Graham told the FtP committee that he deeply regrets his actions and accepted his conduct fell “well below” the standard expected of him. 

However, the committee found little evidence of insight into his conduct, adding that it is “entirely unclear as to how much of this medication was diverted by the registrant for the use of others” which poses a potential public harm risk.  

The PSNI made the decision to strike Mr Graham’s name from the register and took the additional step of imposing an interim suspension order during the 28-day appeal period.