A woman charged with supplying heroin has described how she felt she was leading a double life after deciding that buying heroin from a dealer would be easier than getting a pain killer from her GP.

“No one knew of my addiction because I had such an important role,” Sarah Badrock told Swansea Crown Court this week.

“I was leading a double life and I didn’t want to be associated with the local heroin addicts…I’d like to think I don’t look nor present myself like your typical heroin addict."

Sarah Jane Elyse Badrock is this week standing trial in Swansea Crown Court for possessing heroin with intent to supply and a further charge of being concerned in supplying Class A diamorphine.

She denies both charges.

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Badrock, 36, claims that her life went into turmoil during the Covid pandemic when she was employed as a team leader in a Pembrokeshire care company.

“I was working six days a week from 6am until 10pm and we were extremely short staffed,” she said on the first day of her trial (Monday). “The stress levels were intense, so I took heroin.”

Badrock went on to say that her heroin addiction stemmed from the pain that was caused by a sprained ankle.

“My prescription tablets ran out, I couldn’t search for them so it was easier for me to get heroin from a dealer than to go to Withybush and wait five hours for a prescription,” she said.

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The Crown alleges that between October 22 and December 21, 2020, Badrock made 13 trips from her home in Letterston to Nelson which is a village near Merthyr Tydfil, to buy heroin with the intention of supplying other people.

When she was apprehended by police on the A40 near St Clears in the early hours of December 20, police discovered over £3,000 worth of heroin (24.09 grammes) tucked inside a condom that had been placed in her bra.

Further searches of her property in Jubilee Close, Letterston, revealed over three grammes of heroin in a tin foil square on her dressing table, 3.5grammes of cannabis and £455 in cash.

But Badrock claims the Class A drugs were for her own personal use.

“Without it [the heroin], I felt so, so poorly,” she told Judge Wayne Beard at this week’s trial.

“I only took heroin to feel normal. And I chose to travel all that way to get it because I didn’t want to be associated with local addicts in the area.

"I couldn’t function without it – not to get intoxicated or dribbling or anything like that, but just to be normal.”

Badrock claimed that each of the 12 heroin purchases from the unnamed dealer in Nelson amounted to £120, which totallaed £1,440 .

During her cross examination she was asked by Prosecution Counsel Ian Wright how she could afford to spend this amount every three weeks, having lost her job in September 2020.

Her response was that, having earned around ’32 grand a year’ as a carer, she had savings. But Mr Wright confirmed that there was no evidence of this.

“There are no savings to be seen” he said. “We just have to rely on your word.”

The trial continues this morning.