Doctor tried to spike lover’s drinks to cause miscarriage

MARRIED hospital consultant Edward Erin is facing jail after being convicted of attempting to spike his pregnant lover’s drinks in a bid to make her lose her baby.

Erin was found guilty of two charges of attempting to spike Bella Prowse’s Starbucks coffee andorange juice.

But an Old Bailey jury found him not guilty of spiking her Earl Grey tea, and could not reach a verdict on a charge of procuring drugs to induce an abortion.

The court was told Prowse, 33, became suspicious and did not consume the drinks, which were later found to contain abortion-inducing drugs.

Erin, 44, of Kensington, west London, was remanded in custody till November 16 for sentencing.

Prowse, who was in the public gallery, sobbed as she waited for the verdicts.

Her friends clapped when the guilty verdicts were announced.

Married father-of-two Erin was found guilty by the jury of six women and five men of attempting to spike the coffee on February 7 last year, and by a majority of 10-1 on attempting to spike the orange juice on February 8.

Judge Richard Hone told Erin: “A custodial sentence is virtually inevitable.”

Erin showed no emotion as he was led to the cells.

Prowse, a hospital secretary, was said by the prosecution to have become pregnant after a brief affair with the doctor following a Christmas party.

After refusing his pleas to have an abortion, she went to police, claiming he had put drugs into her Earl Grey tea.

She said she had seen a pale yellow powder at the bottom of the cup on February 2. A test showed traces of a drug in the cup and in her system.

But a prosecution forensic expert told the court the drug would have passed out of her body by the time she went to police a week later.

Prowse, of Brixton, south London, gave birth to a healthy son in September last year.

Erin had denied the charges, claiming he only got the drugs after being urged to by Prowse, and only to demonstrate they were impractical to use.

Now Erin’s glittering career as a respiratory specialist at St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, and a research fellow at the Royal Brompton Hospital, both in west London, lies in ruins. His “unconventional” private life is also out in the open and he faces being asked to financially support a child he did not want.

During the trial, the prosecution case sounded like a plot from an Agatha Christie thriller.

But the defence case was more like the film Fatal Attraction, with Prowse cast as the “bunny boiler” lover.

Prowse, an unmarried mother of a 13-year-old daughter, said Erin made her a cup of tea on February 2 last year after they spent all night rowing at her south London home. When she queried it, he had rinsed the cup and told her it was fur from her kettle.

Prowse said they began an affair after the office Christmas party on December 20, 2007.

But by January 21 last year, she found out she was pregnant. Erin tried to persuade her to have an abortion, but she cancelled two appointments.

She wiped away tears and sobbed as she explained she had had an earlier abortion in 2002, and felt guilty that she had made a mistake.

Erin’s wife, eminent microbiologist Dr Lowri Erin, saw him crushing tablets in their kitchen but thought nothing of it when he said it was for work.

A week later, Prowse had become suspicious when they met for coffee and she noticed the lids of the cups had been removed and replaced.

She poured the coffee into a bottle without drinking it.

The following day, Erin offered her orange juice at work. She did not drink it when she noticed the seal on the bottle was broken.

But Erin’s wife believed his pleas of innocence.

Asked if she believed Prowse’s claims, she said: “Absolutely no.”