Goncalo De Melo Rodrigues
Introduction
Goncalo De Melo Rodrigues is a former hospital and community pharmacist who was struck off the General Pharmaceutical Council register after being convicted of three counts of causing another person to look at a sexual image without their consent — offences committed against three female colleagues at a Boots pharmacy in the west of Scotland and in the oncology department at Raigmore Hospital in Inverness. Rodrigues did not attend his fitness-to-practise hearing and, in a single email to the regulator, dismissed the proceedings as “pure harassment and excuses to hide racism.” The GPhC committee found his offences caused harm to all three colleagues and that sexual misconduct imposing sexual images on colleagues without consent breaches professional boundaries irreconcilable with registration.
Background Information
Rodrigues worked as a locum pharmacist at a Boots branch in west Scotland and as a pharmacist in the oncology department at Raigmore Hospital in Inverness. The offending spanned May 2022 to October 2023 and involved three women he worked with: Colleague A, Colleague B, and Colleague C — one of them 19 years old. At a trial at Inverness Sheriff Court on 31 July 2025 he was convicted on three counts of causing another to look at a sexual image without their consent. He received a concurrent community payback order with supervision over six months and was placed on the Sex Offenders’ Register for five years from the date of conviction. The GPhC’s fitness-to-practise proceedings followed the convictions, with an interim suspension in place pending the hearing.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Adjudicated vs. alleged. Rodrigues’s convictions on three counts of causing another to look at a sexual image without their consent were entered after trial at Inverness Sheriff Court on 31 July 2025 and are a matter of court record. The misconduct findings of the GPhC committee rest on those convictions and on colleagues’ evidence; the account names below are the proceeding’s anonymised witnesses.
Colleague A received an illicit video from Rodrigues and was “visibly upset,” telling her manager she did not want to work with him. Colleague B met Rodrigues through Facebook; his messages to her became increasingly inappropriate, culminating in him sending her photographs of his genitals. Colleague C was messaged and complimented despite making clear she was not interested; the exchanges became increasingly personal until he was “sexting” her and making sexually explicit comments, including that “he’d like to bend me over the desk at work.” He sent her a disappearing message and encouraged her to open it; inside was a picture of his genitals. She described feeling sick and violated. At trial, the court heard one of the women was 19. Rodrigues was convicted on all three counts.
The GPhC hearing took place remotely by videolink in June-July 2026, about a year after the convictions. Rodrigues did not attend and did not engage beyond a February 2026 email in which he wrote: “I’ve dealt with a well over-exaggerated penalty for something I’m not to blame for… This is pure harassment and excuses to hide racism,” adding that he no longer lived in the UK and could not pay or attend. GPhC lawyers submitted that he has “no insight” and views himself as the victim. The committee found his offences “caused harm to all three colleagues,” citing Colleague C’s account of feeling violated and traumatised and her subsequent “recurring sexual assault dreams,” and stated: “Sexual misconduct of this nature, intentionally imposing sexual images on colleagues without their consent, clearly breaches professional boundaries and the relationship of trust between colleagues.” It noted that because one victim was 19, Rodrigues “would have been in a position of relative power over her.”
Public Reaction and Consequences
The case was reported across the pharmacy trade press and the Highland local press under headlines pairing the convictions with the strike-off — “one year after being convicted of sexual offences,” as the Inverness Courier put it. The GPhC’s determination language was blunt: the behaviour “would have created a risk of harm to the public because harm was caused to colleagues and working relationships would be impacted,” and colleagues made to feel uncomfortable in their place of work can lose focus on patients, “thereby caus[ing] them harm.” NHS Highland declined to comment on individual staff matters. Rodrigues’s own email — blaming racism, denying blame, demanding the regulator stop contacting him — became the record of his attitude toward accountability.
Current Status
The committee directed that Rodrigues be struck off the GPhC register. Under the regulator’s procedure, the striking-off was not formally implemented until 29 July 2026 to allow an appeal window, with an interim suspension remaining in force until then; no appeal is reported in the fetched coverage. Rodrigues remains on the Sex Offenders’ Register until 2030 under his five-year notification period, and his community payback order with six months’ supervision runs from the 2025 conviction. He is reported to be living outside the UK.
Impact on Their Career/Life
Two pharmacy roles — community locum and hospital oncology pharmacist — are gone, along with the registration itself; the GPhC noted “sexual offending of this nature is difficult to remediate,” and a registrant who tells the regulator the case is harassment has, by definition, no insight to remediate with. For the two workplaces, the case documents how the offending crossed settings: the same pattern of escalating unsolicited sexual contact followed Rodrigues from a retail pharmacy to an NHS oncology department. For the profession’s regulators, it is another data point that convictions for image-based sexual offending end pharmacy careers outright — the committee treated harm to colleagues as harm to the public interest, not a private matter. The three colleagues’ accounts, carried through the criminal trial and the FtP hearing, are the reason the register lost him; his own email is the reason no lesser sanction was ever realistically available.