'I did not know heroin was in my wardrobe," Carlisle woman tells drugs trial

By Phil Coleman

Last updated at 12:07, Wednesday, 27 June 2012

A young Carlisle woman interviewed by police who found heroin worth £22,000 in her bedroom wardrobe told detectives: “I never knew it was there.”

Hannah Fisher, 18, told the officers who were interviewing her about the drugs find that she did not even know what heroin looked like, or what you would do with it.

“I have no knowledge of heroin at all,” she said during her interview.

Fisher, of Kirkbrae Avenue, Belah, is on trial at Carlisle Crown Court accused of jointly possessing the heroin with intent to supply it.

She has pleaded not guilty to the charge.

The jury in the case has already heard how police found her in a car with Stephen Townsend, 20, a self-confessed drug dealer from Merseyside. Police later found the heroin hidden in a wardrobe at Fisher’s home.

The first she knew of Townsend and drugs was when she saw the bag of crack cocaine found by police next to him in the car’s footwell in September last year.

If she had known about his involvement with drugs, she said, she would not have knocked around with him.

She said: “It puts my job at risk.”

Asked about her comment that she did not like drugs, she said: “I meant cocaine, and heroin, and things like that.”

She said she used to use cannabis but no longer did.

“I don’t touch it now,” she said, explaining that cannabis had made her a bit paranoid. “I used to have half a joint before bed or whatever because I used to not sleep as well.”

Fisher denied also she had ever discussed looking after drugs with Townsend.

She said that none of her family or friends had ever been involved with heroin. “I would not ever put it in my mum’s house, even if it was mine,” she said.

The police officer told her he found it “inconceivable” that Townsend would have felt confident enough to leave £22,000 worth of heroin in her room without discussing with her the need to do so and the need for it to be kept safe.

She said: “I know what you mean but I honestly didn’t know what was there.

“If he had asked, I would have said no straight away. I would not have even spoken to him again. It would have put me off right away.”

In her evidence to the court, Fisher described how she met Townsend socially and offered him a lift to home of a mutual friend. He had known her parents were due to be away on holiday, she said.

During the journey, she stopped off at her home to change out of her work clothes and at her house he asked to use the toilet upstairs next to her bedroom, she said.

He took his sports bag with him, and was away for one or two minutes.

Fisher, who has also denied possessing the £3,000 worth of cocaine with intent to supply it, said he did not ask to leave anything in her room.

Asked if she would ever have agreed to letting Townsend leave dangerous drugs there, she replied: “No.”

The trial continues.

First published at 11:25, Wednesday, 27 June 2012
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk