Painkillers ‘don’t reduce chronic pain for millions’

but admitted manslaughter and sexual assault. Yesterday, he switched his murder plea to guilty.

Mrs Woolmer, 4ft 11in tall, was suffering from the brittle bone condition osteoporosis. Her half naked body was found wrapped in a bed sheet by her sister and best friend last August.

Out of prison on licence at the time, he told an former partner: “We were smoking crack and drinking. “I went to rob a house. I think I hurt someone. I only got a hundred quid – it wasn’t even worth it.”

Dempster, from Tottenham, is to be sentenced today.

DI Garry Moncrieff said: “The most experienced officers were shocked at the extent of the violence and the defendant’s depravity.”

TOO many opioids are being dished out because GPs are under pressure and lack alternatives, experts said yesterday.

Some 5.6 million people are prescribed drugs such as codeine, fentanyl and morphine every year, according to figures from Public Health England.

But Professor Cathy Stannard, a consultant in pain medicine for more than 20 years, said nine in 10 of those given the drugs for chronic pain see no benefit.

She said: “The prescribing is more prevalent than you would imagine, given the known effectiveness of the drugs.

“We need to know, crucially, how many of those are benefitting and how many of them aren’t.”

Use of opioids in Britain has doubled in the last 20 years, sparking fears of an addiction crisis like that engulfing the US.

Despite a decline in prescriptions over the last two years, a major PHE

report in September revealed that more than half a million people had been continuously taking them for more than three years.

Prof Stannard said part of the problem is that GPs are often under pressure

to prescribe drugs such as hydrocodone, oxycodone and oxymorphone. Pushy patients and a lack of other options, such as mental health or addiction services, leave family doctors with limited options.

Speaking at a briefing in London, experts said there is currently no way of knowing whether those on the drugs long term belonged to the 10 per cent for whom they are effective.

But they argued it was worth giving the drugs to nine patients for whom they do not work, in order to find the one who will benefit.

Rosanna O’Connor, director of Alcohol, Drugs,Tobacco and Justice at PHE, said: “We know that GPs in some of the more deprived areas are under great pressure but more needs to be done to educate and support patients, as well as looking closely at prescribing practice and what alternative treatments are available locally.”

Professor Martin Marshall, chair of the Royal College of GPs, said: “These drugs can be effective treatments when prescribed appropriately, particularly in the short term – and a widespread inquiry by Public Health England last year found that most prescriptions issued in primary care are prescribed for short-term use and that overall we are seeing a decline in opioid prescriptions for chronic pain.”