A 58-year-old former Co Clare GP who has previously been struck off the medical register was yesterday convicted on nine counts relating to the sale and supply of prescription-only medicines without a licence and without necessary authorisation.
Paschal Carmody, Ballycuggeran, Killaloe, Co Clare, was fined €1,500, ordered to pay €10,000 in costs and expenses and given a 10-month sentence, suspended on condition that he be of good behaviour for 12 months.
Recognisances were fixed in the event of an appeal.
Judge James O'Connor also adjourned the case for review to December 19th, 2007, and said the defendant would be jailed for 10 months if he misbehaved in the meantime.
Judge O'Connor said there should be no "ifs or buts" to the "lifetime undertaking" not to break any laws in relation to any occupation he takes up in the future. Otherwise it should be a custodial sentence.
"It has to be go deo, go deo," Judge O'Connor said. The undertaking under oath also had to be freely given.
Carmody then took the stand. Asked by his barrister, Brian McInerney, if he would abide by the undertaking not to break any laws in relation to medicines or medicinal products or in any occupation, he replied "I do".
The special sitting of Tralee District Court heard on its second day that Carmody had 11 previous convictions for the supply and manufacture and sale of a range of medicinal products without a licence.
Mr McInerney said it was a difficult case which involved wrong-doing but also a very tragic human position. His client was married with five children aged between 15 and 21. Three of the children were now at university.
He was a former professional man and a doctor in the Killaloe area where he was held in high regard by a great proportion of his patients. "Mr Carmody is virtually unemployed and unemployable," Mr McInerney said.
His wife, also a doctor, had experienced considerable illness in recent times and the family had three university students to be supported. He was now managing horses on land he did not own.
Carmody, who initially pleaded not guilty to 16 summonses, was convicted on a total of nine counts of the sale and wholesale of St John's Wort and melatonin on November 3rd, 2003, and January 30th, 2004; and of the sale of Ultra Diet energizer, containing ephedrine, on December 11th, 2003.