Woman ‘was using drugs since teens’
A WOMAN accused of conspiring to supply Class A drugs in Bridgend told a court she first became addicted to heroin when she was teenager.
Natalie Stephens denies the charges against her and she is on trial at Cardiff Crown Court with co-defendants Robert Owen, Ian Wilkins and Kane Griffiths.
Asked by her counsel David Sedgwick how long she had been affected by addiction, she replied: “Since I can remember.”
Stephens said she became addicted to alcohol and amphetamine when she was 12 or 13 and heroin when she was 16.
The defendant, giving evidence from the witness box, said she stopped drinking and taking drugs when she became pregnant with her first child.
She said she ended an abusive relationship and stopped misusing substances for eight years, but relapsed when she was about 30.
Asked what she was addicted to before she was arrested in January, she replied: “Anything to numb the pain – alcohol, amphetamine, crack, smack.”
Stephens said she had been living at Waunscil Avenue in Brackla for about a year and, asked who she bought drugs from, she replied: “Whoever was there.”
She accepted buying drugs from the Rogue Line, but denied selling.
The court heard there was a message to her from “Rogue” on January 12 saying: “I need someone to run for me.”
Stephens replied saying: “I’ll do it for you if you give me a last chance. I won’t f*** you about.”
She admitted sending the message and told the court: “I thought for a split second I wouldn’t mind doing it.
“Then the panic really set in. They’re dangerous. A girl got sliced up for messing things up. I changed my mind and quickly pulled out.”
Mr Sedgwick asked: “Did you do anything for the Rogue Line? Did you sell drugs for them? Did you run for them?”
Stephens said she did not. She added: “I didn’t want to go through with it.”
Prosecutors allege Griffiths was responsible for recruiting two girls from London to work selling drugs in Bridgend using Stephens’ home as a “safe house”.
Stephens accepts she let the girls – who cannot be named for legal reasons – stay with her overnight, but had no idea they were linked to the Rogue Line until she was in the police station.
One of the girls told the police they made £500 within an hour by selling drugs at Stephens’ home. Stephens said: “No, no one came at all.”
Mr Sedgwick asked: “It is suggested you were selling drugs. Is that right?”
Stephens replied: “No way. No. They were only in my flat for 10 to 12 hours. Nothing like that was going on. I would not have had it going on.”
Stephens, 31, from Waunscil Avenue; Owen, 56, from Tremains Road in Bridgend, and Griffiths, 22, from Coutts Avenue in Chessington, deny conspiring to supply heroin and crack cocaine.
Wilkins, 42, from Westward Place in Bridgend, denies those counts and two counts of being concerned in the supply of the same drugs.
The trial continues.