BRIDGEWATER, N.S. -- Information provided to a medical regulator has been excluded from the drug-trafficking trial of a Nova Scotia doctor accused of prescribing 50,000 pills to a hospital patient.
Defence lawyer Stan MacDonald says a Bridgewater provincial court judge ruled Friday that a letter and interview Sarah Dawn Jones provided to the College of Physicians and Surgeons in September 2015 should be omitted from her trial.
Jones has pleaded not guilty to charges including possession of narcotics for the purpose of trafficking, drawing a document without authority and fraud.
When charges were laid over a year ago, Bridgewater police and the federal Crown alleged that Jones wrote the prescription for oxycodone and oxyneo pills over a one-year period to a hospital patient -- but the drugs were diverted into the community.
MacDonald says the evidence given to the governing body was provided under compulsion, and constitutional provisions protect against the use of self-incriminating evidence a person provides to a professional regulator.
The defence lawyer also says evidence about a medical drop box at Jones' Crossroads clinic in Tantallon, N.S. -- which Jones told investigators contained some of the prescribed narcotics -- will be dropped from the trial.
MacDonald said during a hearing Monday that police only became aware of the drop box and its inventory through the information Jones provided to the college.
The trial is still set to resume Tuesday morning, with eight days set aside.
