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A former New Zealand psychiatrist has been cleared of killing a patient who died of an overdose at a British hospital, the BBC reported.
Peter Fisher, 46, had denied killing Peter Weighman, who died from a drugs overdose at West Cumberland Infirmary in Whitehaven in September 2002.
In New Zealand, Fisher had been found guilty of professional misconduct over his care of paranoid schizophrenic patient Mark Burton.
Burton was discharged a day before stabbing to death his mother, Paddy Burton, in Queenstown in 2001.
Fisher, now living in Devon, was in charge of the mental health ward where Mr Weighman, 39, was being treated for depression in 2002, when he took 50 Copraxamol tablets.
The jury at Carlisle Crown Court took four hours to find him not guilty, the BBC said on its website.
After the hearing, the senior investigating officer in the case, Detective Chief Inspector Andy Carter said: "It seems strange to me that there is an apparent hole in the medical system whereby a doctor who is not registered and who has failings cannot be subject to action from any statutory body.
"The General Medical Council (GMC) was powerless to act as he was not registered with them."
Fisher -- formerly of Invercargill -- was a doctor in three New Zealand cases which involved deaths.
Burton was found not guilty of murder because of insanity after a High Court trial.
Fisher was investigated by medical authorities for professional misconduct in the Burton case, but shortly after the investigation began he returned to Britain, where he started his new job at West Cumberland in August 2002.
He did not reveal the disciplinary proceedings to North Cumbria Mental Health and Learning and Disabilities NHS Trust, which appointed him on a temporary basis until his GMC registration was confirmed.
Mr Weighman died a month later, 14 months before the New Zealand's Medical Practitioners' Disciplinary Tribunal found Fisher guilty of 17 counts of professional misconduct while caring for Burton and suspended him for six months.
Fisher had been put on call within a month of joining the Cumberland Infirmary as a locum doctor, despite the hospital knowing of his lack of registration.
He was in charge of the Yewdale Ward on September 22 when Mr Weighman took the overdose.
After carrying out an examination and taking a blood sample, he said he was satisfied the patient was sleeping off the overdose.
But Mr Weighman, of Whitehaven, died in the early hours of the following morning.
Neither Fisher nor the Weighman family commented as they left court.
- NZPA
