Downpatrick GP is jailed for nine months

Downpatrick GP is jailed for nine months

DOWNPATRICK GP Hugh McGoldrick has been jailed for nine months for falsifying a clinical trial involving his patients.

The 59 year-old doctor, the first person in the UK to be convicted of such an offence, has also been ordered to pay compensation of £10,000 for two charges relating to breaching trial protocol.

Sentencing McGoldrick, of Crossgar Road Road, at Newtownards Court this morning, Judge Piers Grant said it was clear he had “taken a number of significant positive steps to breach the trial protocol himself, deliberately and knowingly.”

Expressing concern about the way in which McGoldrick had faced the offences, Judge Grant said the defendant had attempted to “put a very different gloss” on his conduct after making guilty pleas as part of an agreement in which other charges he had been due to face were not proceeded with.

Describing his behaviour as “unscrupulous”, the judge said McGoldrick, a GP in Downpatrick for 30 years, had “tried to excuse his conduct.”

Downpatrick Crown Court previously heard details of how the doctor recruited 10, mostly elderly, patients to the study of insomnia medication, which involved over 1800 people worldwide.

The patients needed to submit a daily sleep diary through a dedicated phone line to determine if they were suitable candidates during this first stage of the clinical trial. 

McGoldrick admitted fabricating records for six of his patients who he claimed were reluctant to use the telephone system themselves.

Referring to this fact today, Judge Grant said the defendant could easily have excluded these patients from the trial.

“It was a simple remedy to reject such patients and omit them from the trial, the defendant did not do so but submitted the information himself,” he said.

Referring to a pre-sentence report provided for today’s hearing, Judge Grant noted that he offered no excuse for his behaviour.

“You simply say you were doing it for the benefit of clinical research, which I entirely reject,” he said.

Saying he had taken into account McGoldrick’s previously clear record and the fact the doctor had recently retired when considering sentence, Judge Grant said he was unlikely to be invited to work in the medical field in the future.

“You yourself are the person who has thrown that away through your unscrupulous conduct,” he said

“I take the view these are serious offences and the message needs to be sent out loud and clear that people not adhering to the protocol will suffer the consequences.

“People like you must be deterred. Your breach of trust and your response to that breach of trust requires a custodial sentence.

“I am concerned about the way in which you have faced these offences.”