Vet suspended after drug-driving admission

A Tyne and Wear-based vet has been suspended from practice for six months following a drug-driving incident nearly two years ago.

An RCVS disciplinary panel was told a staff rota was submitted to support Razvan Alexandru Georgescu’s initial claim he had not been due to work on the day of the incident.

But he later admitted the document was false and alleged he was being blackmailed by a colleague whom he had been driving at the time.

Dr Georgescu is currently the subject of a 20-month driving ban imposed by Newcastle magistrates in April last year after he admitted driving while exceeding the specified limit for benzoylecgonine, a breakdown product of cocaine.

Falsified rota

Newly published documents from a disciplinary hearing into the case stated that a blood sample taken by police after the incident on 20 June 2023, showed him to be more than seven times over the prescribed limit.

Giving evidence, Dr Georgescu told the committee had attended a party in Edinburgh with his then girlfriend three days before the incident, where he was offered drugs.

He added that he had wanted to “disconnect a bit” from pressures related to his work and the ill-health of a close family member.

The reports also said he had reported the matter to the college himself following the court proceedings, stating he had not been due to work on the day of his arrest before his business partner submitted a rota supporting his claim.

However, during a meeting with the college in November 2024, Dr Georgescu admitted he had intended to work on the day of the incident and the rota was only created “for the purpose of submission to the college” to support his case.

Blackmail claim

He also claimed that a fellow vet who had been a passenger in the car at the time, and who exchanged messages with him discussing what to say to the college, had begun blackmailing him.

The committee was told the vet had requested £3,000 two days before the meeting where Dr Georgescu made his admissions.

But the college argued his admissions were only prompted by those actions “rather than a desire to be honest with his professional regulator which he had been misleading for a number of months”.

The committee deemed Dr Georgescu unfit to practise based on his conviction and had “no hesitation” in concluding that his actions after the case amounted to disgraceful conduct in a professional respect.

But, in determining sanction, it argued there was “no significant risk” of repeat offending and removal from the register would be “unduly punitive”.