A young Arbroath woman, who injected a fellow drug user with heroin but then called the emergency services and remained by his side when he lapsed into unconsciousness and stopped breathing, was detained for nine months at Arbroath Sheriff Court yesterday.

Laurie Denise Falconer (20), otherwise known as Moore, of Bloomfield Crescent, had previously admitted that on December 2 last year, at an address in Grange Road, Arbroath, she culpably and recklessly injected Paul Howell, c/o Tayside Police, with a quantity of diamorphine—the medical term for heroin—to the danger of his life.

The court had heard Mr Howell was himself a regular intravenous drug user but he had difficulty in administering injections himself and had asked Falconer to assist him.

Defence solicitor Ian Flynn said yesterday the court was well aware of his client’s previous convictions but asked that consideration be given to an alternative to custody on this occasion.

Mr Flynn read from a letter he had received from a drugs expert engaged by the National Expert Witness Service, saying, “Ms Moore has found herself on petition due to her moral behaviour in summoning assistance and waiting with the injured party until the ambulance and police arrived.

“What normally happens is that the overdosed person is abandoned in a common close and is then normally found dead and that way the police can rarely trace the person who administered the diamorphine.”

Mr Flynn went on

, “When Mr Howell collapsed, my client immediately contacted the emergency services and, although he had been carried outside and left by another person—something she would have been physically incapable of doing—she went outside and stayed with him.”

The court heard Mr Howell had lapsed into unconsciousness and had stopped breathing by the time the paramedics reached him and, had there been any further delay in treating him, he would have died.

Sheriff Norrie Stein said despite deserving credit for her actions in assisting Mr Howell, co-operating with the investigating police officers and pleading guilty to the charge, the public interest would not be served by anything other than a custodial sentence.

The sheriff said but for the mitigating circumstances, the sentence would have been a year and urged Falconer to use her time in custody to participate in the heroin detoxification programme.