AN assistant at a doctors' surgery pocketed cash which patients had handed over for their prescriptions, a court heard yesterday.

Dawn Brooks, who has previously admitted a total of nine charges while working at the Lambert Medical Centre, Thirsk, was told she was lucky not be going to prison for such a serious breach of trust.

Instead, she was sentenced to 180 hours of community service and was also ordered to pay £120 costs by Richmond magistrates.

Brooks, of Moor Rise, Sutton-Under-Whitestonecliffe, had worked in the surgery's dispensary. She admitted keeping money that patients had handed over for their medication, then destroying prescription slips to cover her tracks.

The court heard that Brooks was only found out when one of the GPs checked on a particular case.

She tried to evade detection by forging another prescription note to replace the one she had destroyed and by putting £90 in a cash float to disguise the fact that there was money missing.

However, she was sacked when torn prescription notes were found and the police were called in.

Magistrates were told that surgery records showed a dip in income from prescription charges throughout Brooks' employment between 1996 and 2001.

In mitigation, David Smee pointed out that Brooks had only been charged with one offence of forgery, four of destroying prescriptions and four of stealing prescription charges.

"If the prosecution thought she was guilty of more, then they could have said so - and we would have challenged them to prove it," he said.