Doctor who injected heroin into patient with headache

In 1996, Stuart Green, now 47, was working as a locum GP in Camberwell Green surgery in south London. Unknown to his colleagues, he had developed an addiction to heroin.

Green began to forge prescriptions for diamorphine and pethadine for his terminally ill cancer patient, but would actually use the medical grade heroin himself.

But nurses and fellow GPs at the surgery became suspicious whilst checking prescription records, and when one of his relatives approached the surgery to voice concerns about his health, Green was sacked and the police were informed. Upon his arrest, Green insisted that he had used the drugs as an experiment to see how effective they were.

“Like a fool, I decided to try some myself,” he told police officers. “But I’m off it now and have no intentions of getting hooked to it again.”

Green avoided a jail term and instead was sentenced to community service, with the judge giving him credit for his guilty pleas, his remorse, and having taken into account that he had not supplied drugs to others.

Following the conviction, the GMC suspended Green from practicing medicine.

However, he carried on working regardless, taking a locum GP job at Laindon health centre in Basildon, Essex. Patients had no idea he was banned from working as a doctor.

Green was still addicted to heroin and began taking risks.

And when Cliff Sharp, a welder and father-of-three, came to see Green complaining of headaches, the doctor injected him with heroin before later using the leftover to feed his habit.

But Mr Sharp collapsed and was taken to hospital and, once again, Green was arrested. This time around, he told the judge at Basildon Crown Court that he treated Mr Sharp with heroin because he had seen Australian doctors use the drug in the same way. Green was sentenced to three-and-a-half-years in prison for the crime. He was released from prison after one year.

Green’s suspension was downgraded in the following years and in 2004, he was free to unrestricted work as a doctor again.

And three years later in 2007, Newham PCT accepted Green onto their performer’s list on the condition that he informed all future employers of his previous convictions. He was taken on by Mercury Health in Reading, but dodged several requests to fill in forms that would have required him to state his criminal past. Green found work at three different surgeries in east London: the Medical Practice and the Tollgate Lodge Health Centre in Hackney, and the Royal Docks Medical Practice in Newham.

The alarm was raised and Green was suspended from working by a GMC in January 2008.

But no-one informed the Medical Practice in Hackney about the sanction, and Green worked for another two months there before being caught out. It would turn out to be the last indiscretion and he was finally struck off the register in July 2009.

Green did not reply to Channel 4 News’s request for a comment.