Drug user stole vegetables to feed heroin habit

A 28-day jail sentence was imposed on Chandra Earwaker this week, after magistrates heard how she hid six packs of heroin in an intimate part of her body when police carried out a drugs raid on her Ely home.

Earwaker - already remanded in custody on other drugs charges involving Operation Orchid - had also admitted stealing £350 worth of groceries from a supermarket to feed her drug habit.

Back in May, 42-year-old Earwaker was given an 80-hour community work order for possessing the heroin during the raid at 59 New Barns Avenue in Ely.

But she breached the work order, missing three work sessions and failing to keep in contact with her probation officer. She had worked only 1.5 hours of the order, so was re-sentenced this week.

At Ely courthouse on Thursday, prosecutor Matthew Bradbury said six wraps of heroin, weighing a total of 0.6 grams, were found on Earwaker during the drugs raid.

On November 20 Earwaker and another person stole a trolley load of groceries from Sainsburys at Bury St Edmunds. Earwaker was still inside the supermarket when the other person was stopped outside, but she had placed items inside the trolley.

Earwaker had previously admitted four breaches of her community order, and stealing the groceries.

Solicitor Jacqui Baldwin said Earwaker had been found suitable for drug rehabilitation programme with the probation service, but was arrested before it could be put in place.

Earwaker, formerly of Clay Way in Ely but currently living at St Neots Marina, had handed over the heroin to police. All the stolen groceries were recovered, she added.