Pubdate: Tue, 21 Dec 2004
Source: Scotsman (UK)
Copyright: The Scotsman Publications Ltd 2004
Contact:  http://www.scotsman.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/406
Author: Nick Allen, PA Crime Correspondent
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)

DETECTIVE'S $2,000-A-MONTH CRACK SHAME

A trainee woman detective revealed today how she pursued a secret
A $2,000-a-month crack cocaine and heroin habit while working in CID.

She also claimed that at least four other officers in her south London
police station had been drug addicts.

When she eventually confessed to senior officers in June 2000 that she
was breaking the law on a daily basis she was given two weeks off to
go "cold turkey" at a relative's house, the policewoman said.

Her superiors at the Metropolitan Police then decided the problem was
a welfare issue rather than a criminal matter, and she was
subsequently given six months' sick leave on full pay to go and seek
treatment, she said.

The 37-year-old officer, who joined the Met in 1993, said she was
partly driven to hard drugs by the stress of working 12-hour days in
the male-dominated culture of CID. But she was tipped over the edge by
the break-up of a relationship.

She told magazine Druglink: "I was one person leading two different lives.
Crack and heroin made me forget about reality. They swept away all my
worries. It was pure escapism.

"I took the drugs in the evenings and on days off, never at work. I
did feel hypocritical arresting people for using crack and heroin -
but I think I dealt with them well. I could relate to them and I was
more understanding of their problems."

She said she had access to drugs after arresting dealers and users but
never took any, instead getting heavily into debt and losing her house.

Allowed back to work in April 2001, she was sent to the Met's
criminal justice unit as a uniformed officer on condition that she was
kept off the beat for five years.

She was also barred from using the police database, cars or other
police stations and required to give Special Branch any information on
dealers she knew.

"It was not nice, especially as I was sitting opposite my old team in
CID. I was like a hot potato stuck in the office cupboard," she said.

Soon after starting back at work she was taking crack and heroin again
two or three times a week, she said.

The officer then decided she needed residential help, and the Met gave
her a $7,000 loan to pay for treatment at a rehab centre in Wiltshire.

While she was there, she met several staff from London Underground who
were also being treated for addictions, she said.

A few months after the course ended she was back on drugs, and a
police psychologist recommended retirement on the grounds of
depression and drug misuse.

Having been in the Met nearly 10 years she was to get a lump sum of
$40,000 and $600 a month until the age of 65.

The Met cut that in half because she had "contributed to her own
disablement" by becoming addicted to drugs, but the officer won an
appeal to a tribunal.

Having left the Met, she criticised their policy towards drug-taking
officers as "half-cocked".

She told Druglink: "It is designed to bring people out, but it does not
follow them all the way. They haven't considered what to do with people once
they have recovered.

"They spend so much money training you, it seems better to try to
keep us in the job. I knew of at least four officers in my station who
were addicted to drugs.

"They have to accept it's happening and that treating an addiction
is not like waving a magic wand."
- ---
MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin