A PHARMACY assistant has been acquitted of stealing hundreds of opiate-based painkillers from York Hospital.

Stuart David Morley, 39, from Gateforth near Selby, was charged with taking two boxes of di-hydrocodeine on 11 occasions from the hospital's dispensary between July 25 and August 30, 2014 after police found boxes of 98 tablets matching the serial numbers of those taken from York Hospital.

Magistrates acquitted him on all charges after a day-long trial.

Giving evidence at York and Selby Magistrates' Court, he said: "I have never stolen anything in my life," and said he believed they had been prescribed to his wife, who was suffering complications after surgery.

Geoff Ellis, for the prosecution, alleged that Morley's computer log-in and password was used to request boxes of 28 tablets each for patients who had not been prescribed the painkiller, and who never received the drugs.

Ghazanfar Iqbal, for Morley, said that on some occasions another staff member's log-in and password had been used to issue the drugs, and that use of colleagues' passwords was not unheard of in the dispensary.

Pharmacist Stuart Parks told the court it was not likely that the woman whose passwords were used on those occasions was responsible for the missing drugs, and said an internal investigation looking at three months of discrepancies found "she was not at work on those dates, but the defendant was".

Principle pharmacist Sarah Webster, who carried out the investigation told the court that although there were no witnesses, the evidence collected "strongly suggested" Morley was responsible for the missing drugs, as he was "the only common denominator in that wider period of three months".

Prosecution witnesses from the hospital said use of other people's passwords were against their training, but that on occasion, a computer logged-in by one person could be left unattended and therefore accessible by someone else.

Defence and prosecution agreed that access into the dispensary was controlled and staff on duty would notice if anyone was there without authorisation.