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Robyn Edie/Stuff
Shanna Crosbie, right, supported by Gore mayor Ben Bell’s mother Rebecca Tayler, entering the Gore District Court on December 21 last year.
The woman who forged prescriptions from Gore Hospital and used them to obtain tramadol and codeine can now be named as Shanna Marie Crosbie, who worked as an executive assistant for Gore district mayor Ben Bell.
At a hearing in the High Court in Invercargill last week Crosbie lost a bid for name suppression and a discharge without conviction. Her sentence was reduced to 75 hours’ community work and nine months supervision.
She was given five working days to appeal that decision, which lapsed at 5pm on Tuesday.
A spokesperson for the Gore District Council said Bell would not comment on the case.
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Crosbie was supported by Bell’s mother, Rebecca Tayler, at her first appearance in the Gore District Court on December 21, where she pleaded guilty to forging a document (a prescription) to obtain property, and using a forged document, both on August 19; and forging a document (a prescription), on September 29, 2022.
On December 19, two days before her first court appearance, Stuff received a text from Crosbie stating ‘’… I just wanted to put it out there and make sure it’s clear that I no longer have any involvement with the mayor (other than being his neighbour/friend) I stepped back after that first council meeting. I think people think I’m still his PA but I’m not.’’
During submissions in the District Court and the High Court, Crosbie’s lawyer, Bill Wright moved to distance Crosbie’s association with Bell, stating they were neighbours, but she had never worked for him in any official capacity.
“She appears in photographs on Stuff’s website and is described as ‘executive assistant’. Why she’s been elevated to this position by the media I have no idea,’’ he said in the Gore District Court on March 22.
Stuff received several emails from Crosbie in the run-up to the election, and after Bell was elected, with the email signature ‘”Personal Assistant to Ben Bell”.
At his first council meeting Bell asked the council to employ a personal assistant for him, although Crosbie was not named in the agenda or at the meeting. The move was labelled a ‘’vanity project’’ by one councillor.
At that meeting Bell revealed he would meet the costs for Crosbie’s trip to Wellington for a Local Government NZ conference, which he had previously asked the council to pay for.
After that meeting, Crosbie had told a Stuff reporter that she was working for Bell in a ‘’voluntary capacity’’.
When asked about that when she sent the text on December 19, she replied: ’’Yeah I thought I would keep doing it, but never ended up being needed, So stepped away from it all.’’
Crosbie also organised a councillors retreat to Cromwell early in Bell’s mayoralty.
It is unclear when Crosbie started working for Bell, but her offending began on August 19, 2022 when she accessed the database and the medical records of a male patient while working as a health coach at Gore Health.
She issued a prescription for 26 capsules of tramadol, with 11 repeats under the man’s name, signed the name of a doctor who worked at the hospital on it, and presented it at a local pharmacy.
Crosbie returned to the pharmacy for repeats on five separate occasions and in total received 140 tramadol capsules. On one of those occasions she had her own customer loyalty card swiped, the court was told.
On September 29, 2022 she again accessed the database and tried on four separate occasions to print another prescription for 16 codeine tablets with two repeats. She tried to print the document four times, but the printer jammed.
Another employee restarted the printer on a separate occasion and the four prescriptions printed.
When approached about the prescriptions, Crosbie resigned immediately.
In his submissions Wright said Crosbie was assessed to be suffering from moderate to severe substance addiction, had a troubled background of abuse and trauma, had previously self-harmed and had a physical disability.
He said the offending was ‘’handed to the woman on a plate’’ and her addiction meant it was effectively ‘’like putting a wino in charge of a bottle store’’ in her place of work.
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