A CHEMIST who was struck off after swindling a building society out of £250,000 is applying to be put back on the register.

Yash Pal Kansal, 56, now of Claremont Road, Fallowfield, Manchester, used to practise in Huddersfield.

His application will be heard next Thursday.

He was struck off by a Royal Pharmaceutical Society disciplinary committee in June, 1995.

The committee heard how Mr Kansal had obtained a cheque for £150,000 from the Halifax on a property owned by himself and his wife in Hornchurch, Essex on March 16, 1988 - five days after he was declared bankrupt.

A week later he returned to the Halifax and obtained £116,000 in cash, £104,000 of which his wife `spirited away' to India in a bin liner.

Kansal appeared at Snaresbrook Crown Court, Essex, on February 18, 1992. He was convicted after pleading not guilty to two counts of obtaining property by deception, one of removing property while bankrupt and one of failing to account for property while he was bankrupt.

He was sentenced to 15 months' jail. His wife was acquitted on a charge of aiding and abetting him.

Although Kansal told the 1995 committee he was of previous good character, it was revealed the society had twice before reprimanded him.

Once was in 1990, for un- licensed selling of drugs without the presence of a pharmacist, and the other in 1993 for the `appalling' state of a pharmacy he was running in Huddersfield.

The committee called Kansal a liar and described aspects of his defence as `utterly ludicrous'.

Following his striking off, Kansal got into further trouble, resulting in a prosecution and a court conviction.

At a hearing before a Royal Pharmaceutical Society disciplinary committee in November, 2002, Kansal failed in a bid to be restored to the register.

The committee said it was not confident he understood that the profession required `honesty, integrity, reliability and personal responsibility'.