Police charged Julia Sharon Princic with 21 offences after officers were alerted to ongoing suspicious behaviour by a customer at a chemist in Manilla.

The 51-year-old woman from Barraba pleaded guilty in Tamworth Local Court this week to one count of larceny, one count of forging a prescription and one charge of inducing a pharmacist to dispense a prohibited drug.

Following discussions between Princic’s solicitor and the prosecution, the court was told 13 other offences were placed on a Form One, to be taken into account in sentencing.

According to court documents, police were alerted after pharmacy staff circulated a memo to all chemists in the region warning them of a woman accused of misusing a prescription medication by presenting several scripts to chemists across the Manilla and Tamworth area.

Manilla police discovered 11 prescription sheets had been stolen from a doctor’s surgery in Tamworth between March 27 and September 2 last year.

Officers went to nine chemists in Tamworth, Manilla and Barraba, and seized the 11 stolen and forged prescriptions in September.

Court documents show that, using the stolen scripts, Princic was able to obtain 3500 tablets of a prescription-only sleeping pill.

Police have been told the prescribed dosage was just two tablets per day.

Officers spoke with the accused at her home on September 15 and “she made full admissions to stealing the scripts, forging and presenting them at the pharmacies within the Tamworth region”.

Police said that, during an interview, Princic admitted she had an addiction to the drug and had removed the scripts when the doctor left the consulting room.

Princic was charged by way of a court attendance notice and first faced court in November, before the case was adjourned.

During the proceedings in court this week, Magistrate Roger Prowse accepted the guilty pleas and the Form One certificate.

He adjourned the case to allow authorities to prepare a report ahead of sentencing in April.