Akim Andrew, the young man who was months ago charged by police for pretending to be a police officer, is now facing the charge of pretending to be a medical doctor and is scheduled to make his first appearance in court on Tuesday, 21 January 2020.
The former General Hospital worker was detained last week and questioned by officers attached to the St Paul’s Police Station. Andrew, who is from Loretto, St John and is also known as “Taxi” was charged with 2 counts of Fraud by False Pretence and 4 counts of “Practicing Medicine without being Registered” by holding himself out to be a medical practitioner without being registered in accordance with the provisions of the Health Practitioners Act.
Information is that he was in a village in the St Paul’s area offering his services in the form of a health fair when someone became suspicious of him. A police report said that he was taken into custody after police received complaints of him offering “medical diagnosis and treatment.”
The teenager who claimed to be a former student of one the universities on the island even charged some persons a fee, wrote prescriptions to some who used his service, requested of them to tell family and friends of his service and gave some tablets which he instructed them to consume.
When police detained him for questioning in the village, he was found with glucose and blood pressure testing equipment and other supplies.
The Health Practitioner’s Act under which he is charged for pretending to be a doctor provides for a maximum penalty of $20,000 as well as to be confined to jail for 2 years, while the criminal code which is used to charge him for false pretence provides for a maximum of 2 years in prison plus a fine.
Section 111 of the Act which is subtitled Offences of False Statements and Forgery states that a person shall not make or produce a false or misleading statement, either orally or in writing, in connection with an application or inquiry; or an investigation into a complaint.