Doctor guilty of forging prescriptions to treat herself

A doctor who was raised in a notorious Victorian cult has been placed on a community order for forging drug prescriptions.

Sarah Moore, 35, has been placed on a two-year community-based order after pleading guilty to 160 charges of forging and obtaining pethidine from Melbourne chemists over six months from October last year.

Ringwood Magistrates Court has been told the doctor was self-medicating her bipolar disorder, depression and post-traumatic stress after enduring a deprived childhood in Anne Hamilton-Byrne’s cult The Family in the 1970s and 1980s.

The court was told Moore was taking dangerously high and sometimes near-lethal doses to deal with psychological and physical pain.

The magistrate said the depravation Moore suffered in the cult would have left a mark on anyone, let alone a child, and that the trauma Moore and other children endured should never have been allowed to occur nor continue for as long as did.

Outside court, Moore said she was working to overcome her problems.

“I just really focus on getting on with my life now and not to forget that these things ever happened but just to get on and do things now,” she said.

She said it was a shame her situation had to become so serious before she was offered appropriate support.

“One of the broader issues in this case is that there hasn’t been broader community support for any of the children of The Family and that includes the so-called Hamilton-Byrnes and the other children that were brought up in this sect,” she said.

She has been ordered to perform 250 hours of community work and signed a four-year undertaking to continue drug and psychiatric treatment.

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