Proceeds of crime proceedings are underway to see what funds can be retrieved from a hospital technician jailed for selling stolen medical equipment on eBay.
Mark Charters covertly removed items, some of high value, from the University Hospital of North Durham, where he was a technician responsible for cleaning and maintaining equipment.
He took them home and stored them in his loft before offering them for sale on the online marketplace.
Durham Crown Court was told concern arose as it was noticed items being offered for sale seemed to match those which had gone missing from the hospital.
Police were informed and officers went to Charters' home, in Shiney Row, and his phone was seized, in January 2024.
Medical equipment was recovered from the loft, some still in packaging having apparently been delivered to the hospital and “intercepted” by Charters before ever being used.
They were photographed and logged with some confirmed as belonging to the County Durham and Darlington NHS Trust, which runs the hospital.
Although some items could not be attributed, it was thought they were also taken from the hospital.
Charters was found to have sold 154 items of medical equipment from November 2022 to the end of 2023, making £34,180 from their sale to buyers across the UK.
The trust valued those items at £77,386, showing that the defendant sold them at about half their true value.
Charters’ eBay income totalled £44,686, £30,335 of it just in 2023.
But the prosecution claimed the total value of the recovered items, and those which Charters sold, amounted to £111,356.
He was given a two-year prison sentence at a subsequent hearing at the court.
A statement provided by the trust for the sentencing hearing, in January, described his activities as, "deeply disheartening" and “representative of the significant challenges faced by the trust", adding to the financial pressures on NHS funding.
Passing sentence, Judge Jo Kidd said: "This was a gross breach of trust and the impact on the NHS was significant.
"People working in the NHS need to understand what the consequences may be if they attempt to line their pockets from the equipment and other aspects of the business."
Charters, who has now been released from prison on licence, appeared back at the court on Tuesday (September 9) for a Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) ‘mention’ hearing.
The hearing was told prosecution and defence estimates as to the defendant’s benefit from crime are yet to be agreed, with a third party said to have an interest in the process.
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Paul Newcombe, for the prosecution, said a further POCA hearing could update the different parties’ respective position later this year.
Judge Robert Clews adjourned for the hearing to take place at the court in the week beginning December 15.
He was told the deadline for the final settlement figures is not until December 2026, two years after the date of conviction.
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