Bernard Rebelo

individual · Harrow, northwest London, UK

active:2013–2016

type:individual

role:promoter

location:Harrow, northwest London, UK

eventual status:publicly_disconfirmed

FINANCIAL CONFLICTS

Rebelo imported the industrial chemical in bulk drums from China, capsuled it at two strengths (125mg and 250mg) at his premises, and sold it online at a significant mark-up, disguising shipments under names such as 'optimum gold' and falsely presenting his operation as affiliated with a legitimate business, The Supplement Store. He ignored Food Standards Agency public warnings issued in 2003 and 2012, and continued trading after a customer's death (Eloise Parry, April 2015), after an Interpol Orange Warning in April 2015 tied to a different hospitalized customer, and after learning of the coroner's inquest into Parry's death, until his premises were searched in February 2016. Sentencing him, Mrs Justice Whipple placed his offending in category B for culpability (of the guideline's four tiers, A being highest), holding that he had shown a blatant disregard for a very high risk of death and had been motivated by financial gain, and found the resulting harm was of the highest order.

INTERVENTIONS PROMOTED

DNP (2,4-Dinitrophenol) as a weight-loss drug

NOTABLE PATIENTS

Eloise Parry

NOTES

Bernard Rebelo, reported in UK press and court documents as around 30-32 years old at the time of his 2018 trial and 2020 retrial sentencing (exact birth date not published), ran an internet business, DrMusclePharmaceuticals.com, selling capsuled 2,4-dinitrophenol (DNP) as a bodybuilding and slimming aid from premises in Harrow, northwest London, beginning in 2013. He imported the chemical in bulk drums from China and packaged it into gelatin capsules himself. A 21-year-old customer, Eloise Parry, died on 12 April 2015 after taking DNP capsules she had bought from Rebelo’s site. He was first convicted at Inner London Crown Court in June 2018 of unlawful act manslaughter, gross negligence manslaughter, and a food-safety offense, and was sentenced on 29 June 2018; the Court of Appeal quashed the unlawful-act manslaughter conviction and ordered a retrial on gross negligence manslaughter in 2019, citing a defective causation direction. At the retrial at the Central Criminal Court, Rebelo was convicted again, and on 11 March 2020 Mrs Justice Whipple sentenced him to a total period of 7 years’ imprisonment for the manslaughter. Because it was a retrial she could impose no sentence more severe than the one passed at his first trial, which had been 7 years with 18 months to serve concurrently for food-safety offences; she noted that starting afresh she would have imposed around 8 years. His appeal against conviction was dismissed by the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) on 8 March 2021 (Rebelo, R. v [2021] EWCA Crim 306).