Charges against a Limerick businessman accused of deception over jars of herbal cream were adjourned for three months by an English court yesterday.
Mr Donal Raymond Walsh (59), of Cherryfield House, Ballysimon Road, Limerick, failed to appear for the eighth time at Uxbridge Magistrates' Court due to ill health.
Miss Ailsa Williamson, for the British Medicines Control Agency, applied for a warrant, but Mr Walsh's defence counsel, Miss Sukhy Sanghera, objected, saying he had had two heart attacks and was in hospital.
The magistrates remanded him until November 9th and ordered the return of his £10,000 security in a review of the bail position.
Mr Walsh is charged that on June 12th last year at the Welcome Break Hotel in Mill Hill, north-west London, he obtained £268 by deception from Ms Meena Patel by falsely representing that jars of herbal cream did not contain any steroids.
He is also charged with obtaining £145 by deception from Mr Harjinder Panesar at the same address on June 13th last year, by falsely representing the same jars of herbal cream. Mr Walsh is further charged with dealing in "Cherrydex Cream" and pots of unlabelled preparations at Heathrow Airport on September 17th, 1999.
He is also charged that while acting in the course of business he offered for sale a medicinal cream, not on the general sale list, between June 1st and September 30th last year.
He is further charged with possessing "Cherrydex Cream", knowing, or having reasonable cause to believe, that he was placing it on the market in the absence of EU authorisation between June and September 30th last year.
Finally, he is charged with selling "Cherrydex Cream" which was not of the nature or quality demanded by the purchaser between June 1st and September 30th last year.
However, Miss Sanghera said the report from the defendant's consultant insisted he was not well enough to travel, and this concurred with an independent report from another doctor.
She said another solution would be if the court accepted an undertaking from him that he would not repeat the activity, as he had done so in Ireland.
She said: "The Irish tax authorities say the company is defunct, and if he was to resume he could be sued in both countries."
However, the magistrates, on being advised that another possibility was a period of remand for review of Mr Walsh's health, decided to accept.
