Tesco pharmacist supplied wrong pills that killed woman

Carmel Sheller, 72, collapsed 10 minutes after taking the tablets and died in hospital three days later without regaining consciousness.

She had been prescribed antibiotics for a chest infection and steroids to ease her breathing. But she was given

Propranolol, a beta-blocker normally used to treat heart problems.

Elizabeth Lee, 30, admitted that she had been a duty pharmacist at Tescos in Windsor and had dispensed the medication and handed it to Mrs Sheller's daughter without spotting her error in August 2007.

Lee faced two charges under the Medicine Act which carry a maximum sentence of two years in prison.

The pharmacist wept as she changed her plea minutes before a jury was due to be sworn in at the Old Bailey. She pleaded guilty to supplying a medicinal product with a misleading label on the package. The second charge, of supplying a medicinal product not of the nature specified on the prescription, was left to the lie on the file.

Five members of Mrs Sheller's family were in court. The Recorder of London Judge Peter Beaumont was sentencing Lee after her counsel asked him to impose a fine or conditional discharge.

The change of plea came after the judge rejected defence claims that Tescos and not Lee should be on trial for the error and that the law only applied to the mis-sale of bogus medicines and not the sale in good faith of a bona fide product. The judge described this latter submission as "astonishing" and prosecutor Fiona Horlick said it was "breathtaking". Mrs Sheller was said by her family to have been active and undergoing effective treatment for a number of long-term health problems. She was the main carer for her husband Anthony, 74.

The court heard that Mrs  Sheller had taken eight tablets and "within 10 minutes became ill, lost consciousness and fluid ran down her nose".

Lee accepted she had dispensed the wrong drug and had "probably" checked it without noticing the error.

Tescos "strongly discouraged" the same person dispensing and checking the drugs in their standard operational procedures, the court heard.

The post-mortem found that Mrs Sheller's cause of death was heart failure, chronic bronchitis and lung cancer.