Former prisoner of war who tricked GPs into prescribing morphine breached sentence, court told

A PRESCRIPTION drug addict, who tricked GPs into prescribing him morphine through false identities, has breached his sentence by failing to turn up to mental health appointments.

Christopher Clark, a prisoner of war in South Africa during the apartheid regime 20 years ago, flouted the sentence he was handed down by Gloucester Crown Court.

The 47-year-old, from Stow-on-the- Wold, was given a suspended jail sentence in November after conning the NHS out of £8,849 worth of prescription drugs. He came to court with a transparent bin bag full of medication on Friday, in anticipation of a jail sentence, after failing to turn up to five of his seven appointments.

Prosecutor Giles Nelson said Clark had breached his nine-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, by failing to undertake the mental health appointments.

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Clark previously pleaded guilty to six charges of fraud by false representation against medical facilities in Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Warwickshire and Wiltshire between April 2008 and August 2010.

Judge Jamie Tabor QC said exchanges between Clark and the probation service indicated the order was not going to be a success.

Mary Cowe, defending, said Clark had tried to get in touch to explain his absences, but failed to provide the correct evidence to substantiate it. She added Clark, a commercial investigator, had been a prisoner of the South African Border War 20 years ago and was addicted to the prescription drugs. Judge Tabor said: "If I send him to prison, he will be on suicide watch and no judge wishes to send a man, unless he is ridiculously dangerous, to prison with this type of illness."

He revoked the community order and put in place a curfew from 6pm to 6am for six months.