A disgraced pharmacist caught with a huge stockpile of stolen medication has failed in an Appeal Court bid to clear his name.
Hafiz Noorullah, 47, of Pateley Crescent, Fartown ran a warehouse in Meltham where more than £1m worth of pills was stored before being shipped around the world.
Noorullah, who had already been struck off as a pharmacist, was jailed for four years at Southwark Crown Court after being found guilty of handling stolen goods in August 2011.
Yesterday, he and lawyers challenged his conviction at London's Criminal Appeal Court, arguing it was ‘unsafe’ because the judge misdirected the jury.
But his appeal bid was rejected by three of the country’s top judges, who said there were no arguable grounds for challenging the verdict.
Noorullah had been struck off the pharmacists’ register because of a previous conviction, but ran a warehouse where medication was stored.
When inspectors visited the premises in 2007 they found more than two million tablets for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease, breast cancer and hypertension, which had been stolen in Wiltshire some time earlier, the court heard.
The judge said further investigation found Noorullah was storing the pills for another man, who was trying to sell them to Iran or Poland, which have more relaxed laws on out-of-date medicines.
Launching a bid to challenge his conviction, Noorullah criticised the legal team who represented him at trial – saying they should have argued there was no case to answer – and claiming that the judge misdirected the jury when summing up the case.
But, rejecting all his arguments, and upholding his conviction as ‘safe’, Mr Justice Blair said the grounds put forward by Noorullah were ‘not arguable’.
Sitting with Lord Justice Pitchford and Mr Justice Keith, he added: “He accepted that he was in possession of stolen goods, which demanded an explanation”.
A previous hearing was told the pills were stolen in 2005 while en route from the Swiss headquarters of pharmaceutical giant Novartis to a distribution depot in Thatcham, Berkshire.
More than two years later, investigators found the pills being sold on the internet and were invited to Noorullah’s warehouse to view them.
