A WOMAN has avoided a jail sentence after giving powerful painkillers to somebody she met in a pub - who later dropped down dead.

Russell Claydon

A WOMAN has avoided a jail sentence after giving powerful painkillers to somebody she met in a pub - who later dropped down dead.

Maxine Frost, 43, of Eyre Close, Bury St Edmunds was given a two year conditional discharge at the town's magistrates' court after she admitted supplying a prescription medicine without authority.

She wept in the dock as the magistrates' gave their verdict.

The court heard how Frost went to the Elephant and Castle pub in Bury St Edmunds on April 13 where she met two other ladies, Bridget Taylor and Trudy Lesage, who had been drinking most of the day.

The prescription painkiller Oramoph - a liquid version of morphine - which Frost, who suffers from Crohn's disease, was on was discussed before they decided to go back to her house.

Colette Griffiths, for the prosecution, said Frost gave Ms Taylor, 43, of Tannery Drive, Bury St Edmunds a gulp of it. Almost immediately after she fell into a coma and was dead before the paramedics arrived.

Kevin McCarthy, mitigating, said Ms Taylor had pressurised Frost to allow her to take some of the medicine and had been questioning her about it in the pub. He said his client was previous good character and had pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity.

Lorraine Line, chairman of the bench, told the court they had deliberated long and hard before reaching their verdict, which had been all the more difficult due to no other case appearing to set down a precedent.

She said before handing out the conditional discharge: “It is extremely difficult. This is a one-off scenario made worse by the tragedy of the evening, which was not in any way part of the charge.”

She warned Frost that if she reoffended within the two year period she would be sentenced for the charge again.