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Abortion doctor guilty of 'spiking' pregnant lover's drinks
Paul Cheston, Courts Correspondent19.10.09
A married hospital consultant was this afternoon convicted of attempting to spike his pregnant girlfriend's drinks to make her to miscarry.
Dr Edward Erin, 44, of Kensington, a father of two, was led to the cells at the Old Bailey facing a jail sentence and a career in ruins.
A jury found him guilty of two charges of attempting to poison his secretary's drinks. He tried to slip the powerful drugs into 33-year-old Bella Prowse's coffee in Starbucks and a day later into orange juice he had prepared for her in his office.
But the jury cleared him of mixing similar drugs into a cup of Earl Grey tea in her flat in Brixton in February last year. The jury failed to reach a verdict on a charge of procuring drugs to cause an abortion without Ms Prowse's knowledge.
Erin was consultant respiratory physician at St Mary's Paddington and a clinical research fellow at the Royal Brompton hospital, Chelsea. The court heard that after affairs with two other women he started a fling with Ms Prowse after a Christmas party.
He wrote out a prescription in a false name for methotrexate, diclofenac and misoprostol, all of which could “procure a miscarriage” or cause birth defects. Ms Prowse went to the police after claiming she had found strange substances in a drink made by Erin. He was arrested in his office at the Royal Brompton and asked detectives if he could call his lover to get her to drop the charges. They refused and the consultant declined to answer any questions in interviews.
After the verdicts he was remanded in custody until 16 November for sentencing.
Ms Prowse, who was in the public gallery, sobbed as she waited for the verdicts and buried her head in her lap. Her friends clapped when the guilty verdicts were announced.
Judge Richard Hone told Erin: "A custodial sentence is virtually inevitable." Erin showed no emotion as he was led to the cells.
His wife Lowri had told the court she knew of her husband's previous affairs with hospital registrar Malin Rosener and a woman called Angela but had known nothing of Ms Prowse.
Ms Prowse had a baby boy in September last year. But Erin is now disputing that he is the father.
He is awaiting the results of a DNA test and claims the real father could be a man "called David or Dave" who allegedly also had an affair with her.
Reader views (2)
How can someone who looks so arrogant and obnoxious have a string of women like he supposedely did?
- Nowan King, London
What a scumbag! This guy deserves everything he has got coming to him, and, where he is going, when his fellow 'guests' find out, he will pay the full price!
- Kevin Sullivan, Roehampton, London
