A LOUGHTON pharmacist described as a pillar of the community has been struck off for handing over out-of-date medicine to heart patients.

Manherlal Shah, of Hutchins chemists in the High Road, has been rapped by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society after being caught wrongly telling a woman that six-month old pills were safe, and was also found to be storing out-of-date medication made in 1998 during an inspection in 2004.

Chairman of the society, John Burrow, said it was not the first time that mistakes by Shah had put the public at risk.

A hearing heard how in 1986 he was fined for failing to properly label drugs, and was reprimanded again in 1992 for further failures to keep proper records of some medication.

Mr Burrow said: “Although there are differences in fact of the two appearances and of the current matter before us at the moment, we did conclude that there were some similarities between the cases”.

While Mr Shah was widely respected among his peers and was known for being “knowledgeable, honourable, courteous and trustworthy”, Mr Burrows said the pharmacist's blunders proved a danger to patients.

He said: “Mr Shah had implemented systems which increased the risk of dispensing mistakes to the general public by mixing out-of-date and unlabelled medicines with current stock in the dispensary.”

“He had done this to facilitate the system of securing refunds for out-of-date medicines, in other words for his own financial gain.”

The hearing heard how one of his patients had taken out-of-date medication at one of his pharmacies in Enfield, but that it had not appeared to cause her any harm.

Mr Burrows added: “the breaches of the society's code could not be described as minor.

“Owing to the number of breaches and the period of time over which they occurred, these breaches are serious and warrant, therefore, a more substantial sanction than a mere reprimand.”

Mr Shah has three months to appeal against the decision.

He also owns a chemists in Waltham Cross.