Woman binned drug death evidence

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A woman left the dead body of a heroin-addict friend lying for several hours while she cleared away evidence of drug taking, a court has heard.

Dawn Webster, 39, only dialled 999 to tell emergency services that Mark Howden, 42, was dead after binning needles and other drugs paraphernalia.

Webster admitted drug dealing and attempting to defeat the ends of justice by cleaning the Edinburgh flat.

She was given a two year drug treatment and testing order.

The High Court in Edinburgh was told that mother-of-three Webster had acted out of "panic and fear" because of her own drug habit.

She had initially been charged with culpable homicide after being accused of injecting Mr Howden with a fatal dose of heroin, but her not guilty plea was accepted by the Crown.

Hypodermic needles, swabs, citric acid, spoons and other items associated with the misuse of drugs were bagged up and disposed of Joanna CherryAdvocate depute

Advocate depute Joanna Cherry, prosecuting, told the court Mr Howden, of Caledonian Crescent, Dalry, Edinburgh, had been getting heroin from Webster, who sold the drug to friends to feed her own habit.

On 2 March 2007, he was in Webster's Dalry home where the two of them, and another person, consumed alcohol and heroin.

Mr Howden could later not be roused, but seemed to be breathing normally and was left on a mattress on the floor to sleep it off.

The next morning, Webster realised he was dead and thought the heroin she had given him might be to blame and called for friends to help her.

"Hypodermic needles, swabs, citric acid, spoons and other items associated with the misuse of drugs were bagged up and disposed of elsewhere as rubbish," said Ms Cherry.

"It was not until this was done that the accused made a 999 call to police to inform them that the deceased was dead in her flat."

'Very distressing'

By that time police arrived shortly before 2200 GMT, Webster had also asked another witness not to say anything about drugs.

"By these means the accused attempted to hinder and obstruct the proper investigation of Mr Howden's death," added Ms Cherry.

The court heard that a post-mortem examination concluded the cause of death was a combination of alcohol and heroin.

Webster admitted the full story to police three days later.

Defence advocate Susan Duff said: "She has asked me to publicly express her sympathy to Mr Howden's family for his death, a fact she has found very distressing."