A woman found with dozens of wraps of heroin and cocaine hidden in her bra told police the drugs were for her own use, a court has heard.
Nicola Walsh also claimed the £970 cash in a bag in her pocket recovered by police was money she had been saving to buy an engagement ring for her partner. The 54-year-old has 240 previous offences on her record but none for drugs matters.
Walsh, who is from Liverpool, refused to leave her cell to attend the sentencing hearing, and her advocate told Swansea Crown Court he was not in a position to give details as to how and why the defendant came to be in the city.
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Hannah George, prosecuting, told the court that Walsh came to the attention of police in Swansea just after half-past-midnight on November 22 last year when an anonymous 999 call was received reporting an on-going domestic disturbance at an address in the Manselton area of the city. When officers arrived at the property they found Walsh and another woman involved in a verbal argument. The parties were spoken to separately, and the woman said Walsh had been accusing her of theft.
The court heard that while officers were at the house Walsh produced a bag from her pocket which contained £970 cash in £5, £10 and £20 notes, and the defendant told them the money was to buy an engagement ring for her partner. When Walsh was searched, almost three dozen wraps of heroin and crack cocaine were found in her bra with a street value of around £1,600.
In her subsequent police interview the defendant denied selling drugs, saying the wraps were for her own use. She told officers she was using up to eight wraps a day, and had bought them from a Liverpool drugs dealer who was currently in Swansea - though she declined to provide his or her name. Walsh told officers the money in her trousers were her wages from a cleaning job, and the cash going to be used to buy an engagement ring.
Nicola Walsh, of Ashton Street, Old Swan, Liverpool, had previously pleaded guilty to possession of heroin with intent to supply and to possession of cocaine with intent to supply when she appeared in the dock for sentencing. She has 84 previous convictions for 240 offences mostly of an acquisitive nature and none involving drugs.
Andrew Evans, for Walsh, said it was clear from the defendant's antecedent record that she was "no stranger to the criminal justice system" but that in the absence of more detailed instructions he was unable to tell the court about the background to the current offending or about how his client came to be in Swansea.
With a one-quarter discount for her guilty pleas Recorder Simon Hughes sentenced Walsh to 36 months in prison. The defendant will serve up to half that period in custody before being released on licence to serve the remainder in the community.
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