Howell's £587k pension axed after convictions for groping patients

The Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety forfeited Howell’s pension on the basis that his convictions for indecently assaulting drugged patients were “liable to lead to serious loss of confidence in the public service”.

In May 2011, Howell was sentenced to five and a half years for sexually assaulting five female patients. He admitted sedating the women then abusing them in the dentist’s chair of his surgery in Ballymoney between 1998 and 2008.

Howell is due to be released no earlier that 2030. And while he may have believed he was due to receive his NHS pension at retirement age, instead he won’t receive a thing.

It has been reported that details of the forfeiture emerged after Howell’s estranged wife Kyle Jorgensen, mother to five of his children, instructed her legal team to enquire whether or not she was entitled to any of the pension.