CONVICTED wife killer Brian Crickitt protested his innocence from a Hunter jail in August before a NSW tribunal formally stripped him of his registration as a NSW doctor.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
Crickitt gave evidence from Cessnock's Hunter Correctional Centre nearly three years after he was sentenced to 27 years jail for murdering his wife by injecting her with insulin, and after losing an appeal in October, 2018 against his conviction.
"I strongly proclaim my innocence of this crime and further legal action is being pursued," he told the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal in a letter in June in which he also denied breaching national health law by acting as his wife's doctor for nearly three decades until her death.
"If this were simply the fact that I have been convicted that I had to be deregistered I would not be taking any action. However, the inclusion of other allegations, several without any basis, I feel I need to at least provide this statement," Crickitt said.
"Despite my innocence, I understand that, if the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal pursues this matter at this time it has little option but to order my deregistration."
Crickitt injected his wife with a lethal dose of fast-acting insulin on New Year's Eve 2009 or early on New Year's Day 2010 at their Woodbine home. His trial was told he then left their bedroom to spend the rest of the night with his new lover.
Crickitt's wife was not a diabetic and there was no legitimate medical reason for Crickitt to inject her with insulin, his trial was told.
The trial heard Crickitt carried out two internet searches relating to insulin overdoses a day before his wife's death. He then used a prescription he wrote for a diabetic patient to improperly obtain fast-acting insulin from a nearby pharmacy, but did not provide the medication to the patient.
The NSW Health Care Complaints Commission told NCAT Crickitt's registration needed to be cancelled, despite not being eligible for release until early 2037, because his practice of medicine was "significantly below the standard reasonably expected of a practitioner".
The NCAT ordered that Crickitt is prohibited from providing all "health services", including medical and hospital services, health education and welfare services, Chinese medicine, massage therapy, speech therapy and services provided in alternative health care.
The NCAT was told Crickitt wrote to the Australian Health Practitioners Regulatory Authority in April requesting his deregistration.
The tribunal ordered that Crickitt pay the HCCC's legal costs despite him saying he "had used all his financial resources to pay for his legal representation in his trial and his appeal against his conviction".
"Claimed impecuniousness is not a fact which is a bar to the tribunal making the cost order sought," the NCAT said.
