A UK court has handed an 18 month prison sentence to a man found guilty of contaminating Nurofen Plus packs in 2011, an operation that saw manufacturer Reckitt Benckiser suffer a loss of £2.4m.
Christopher McGuire, a codeine addict, was sentenced by the Southwark Crown Court in London for contaminating goods with the intention of causing public alarm and two counts of and administering a noxious substance with the intent to injure, aggrieve or annoy.
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The man contaminated the packs with AstraZeneca‘s Seroquel (quetiapine), a drug he was being prescribed for schizophrenia.
Reckitt Benckiser received reports of the rogue blister strips in August 2011 and immediately halted production of Nurofen Plus.
Two people were found to have taken Seroquel XL after buying contaminated packs.
Passing sentence at the court, Judge McCreath said: "Your acts caused very considerable financial harm. The costs included recalling the product, destroying suspect stock, investigating the problem which you caused, returning new products to the market and handling the reputational damage caused by you."
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