A WOMAN who admitted tearing up prescriptions and pocketing patients' cash at a doctors' surgery will have to wait until next month to discover her fate.

Magistrates sitting in Richmond, North Yorkshire, yesterday decided they wanted the probation service to compile reports on 36-year-old Dawn Brooks's background before deciding on a sentence.

The Bench was told Brooks, who worked at the dispensary at the Lambert Medical Centre, in Thirsk, North Yorkshire, had been taking money from patients prescribed medication, but then keeping the cash herself and destroying their prescription slips to cover her tracks.

However, prosecuting solicitor Ken Fox told the court Brooks was caught out when the North Yorkshire Health Authority became suspicious about the surgery's medical records, prompting one GP to check a particular case.

Brooks, of Moor Rise, Sutton-under-Whitestonecliff, tried to throw the GP off the scent by forging a prescription she had destroyed earlier, but was dismissed for theft and the police were alerted.

Yesterday, she pleaded guilty to one charge of forgery, four of destroying prescriptions and four of stealing prescription charges.