Cocaine addict nurse stole NHS drugs to supply to her friends
A NUrSe who stole prescrip- tion- only pills from the hospital where she worked and supplied them to her friends was jailed yesterday.
cocaine addict Amie heller, 30, who complained of feeling undervalued due to her ‘extreme shifts on busy, short- staffed wards’, admitted taking a range of strong painkillers intended for patients.
When police raided her home following her arrest, they also found nine bags of cocaine with a street value of £360.
Yesterday the mother- of- one was jailed for three years and eight months after a judge said her thefts ‘struck at the very heart’ of the health Service. heller was caught after NhS bosses received an anonymous tip-off that she was taking drugs from wards at royal Blackburn hospital in Lancashire.
After stock checks were carried out, heller was arrested at the hospital, during which she confessed to having a stolen haul of the sleeping tablet zopiclone and a cache of cocaine at her home in ribchester, near Preston
Officers examined heller’s iPhone, which had texts about the supply of cocaine and prescription medicines – including messages from friends with various ailments asking the nurse if she could get medication for them. She was supplied the cocaine by a local drug dealer so she could sell it to her friends.
in return she would get the drug at reduced rate as part of ‘payment in kind’.
the arrest in July 2015 took place two years after heller became a nurse.
heller, who has since retrained as a beauty therapist, claimed she had never made any money from the thefts and insisted she only passed the medication on to friends.
her lawyer, Philip Barnes, told Preston crown court that she began using cocaine while under stress due to the breakdown of her own and her parents’ relationship as well as from giving evidence at a work inquest.
the nurse pleaded guilty to theft by employee as well four charges of supplying class B and class c drugs, namely zopiclone, tramadol, dihydrocodeine and codeine.
She also admitted supplying cocaine between December 2014 and July 2015, and was ordered to pay £120 surcharges.
Passing sentence, Judge robert Altham told her: ‘ it strikes at the very heart of the business of health care ... You have abused a position of trust to steal drugs from people who were genuinely ill.’
heller now faces being struck off by the Nursing and Midwifery council. in May she will also face a proceeds of crime hearing.
‘Steal from the genuinely ill’