16 January 2024 , 18:38
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A drug-dealing grandmother was "barely able to form a sentence" when police raided her home during a bust at her home, a court has heard.
Joanne McKie was 'heavily intoxicated' when officers smashed their way into her house during a search for drugs on March 30, 2022 and she was found to be selling class A drugs. Police discovered that she had £740 worth of heroin, divided into individual wraps, alongside grip seal bags and weighing scales. The 44-year-old had been drinking with a pal, a court heard.
Officers had raided McKie's home just weeks before, on February 15, 2022, and found heroin alongside two mobile phones - one of which contained messages arranging drug deals.
Mckie, of Grasmere Street in Hartlepool, admitted the possession of a class A drug, and the possession of a class A drug with intent to supply. She has over 240 previous convictions, mainly for theft, Teesside Crown Court was told, reported Teesside Live.
In 2004, McKie was caught smuggling drugs into HMP Holme House. She was convicted of selling drugs again in 2007. Tom Bennett, mitigating, told the court that McKie's brother-in-law had run up a drugs debt, and after he died, McKie said that that debt was passed to her sister. "This defendant tried to help with that debt by drug dealing," Mr Bennett said.
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"She also relapsed and fell back into a drug habit." Judge Paul Watson told Mckie that she has "a long record going back a very long time." McKie was jailed for 40-months.