Care Worker Caught Selling Service Users’ Medication To Junkies

Care worker Susan Gray is trusted to look after some of society’s most vulnerable people and has access to their medication. But the Sunday Mail has revealed she has a sordid little sideline to boost her income…selling junkies prescription drugs, with cannabis thrown in for good measure.

The 42-year-old betrays her employers’ trust with a profitable sideline selling exactly the types of drugs prescribed to those in her care. The mother-of-four sold our undercover investigators 75 dihydrocodeine tablets as well as anounce of cannabis resin. We contacted Gray, of Craigmillar, Edinburgh, following a tip-off from a disgusted former drug-user.

Gray, who works part-time at sheltered housing run in partnership between Bield Housing Association and Edinburgh City Council, was happy to sell our team drugs within four days of first speaking to them.

She met us outside a church on Peffermill Road, yards from the sheltered housing block. Gray arrived with three children, the youngest of which was about two, and a friend who didn’t identify herself. The divorcee then told our reporter: “We’re going for a walk. My house is just round the corner.”

She led our reporter to the home she shares with her partner, three of her own kids and two grandchildren Once inside, Gray informed us she wasn’t able to get any Valium but instead offered our investigators dihydrocodeine.

Known as DFs to drug-users, dihydrocodeine is a painkiller which, like heroin, is derived from poppies. It is used to treat severe pain and coughs and can be used before and after operations. The tablets can be lethal if too many are taken.

Three children ranging from around two to eight years old were in the sitting room of her house. In the kitchen, Gray said: “I can do you a box of 40 DFs as well as 35 others for £37.50.

“If you want any more in future, just let me know and I can get as many as you like. The hash will cost £60.” After grabbing our cash, Gray handed over the dihydrocodeine tablets and the cannabis – which weighed just under one ounce.

The box of dihydrocodeine had the remains of a pharmacist’s label stuck to it – meaning they had been prescribed to someone else. Most of it was ripped off, possibly to disguise the source. A second batch was in different packaging.

After the deal, we saw Gray walking close to her home with one of the vulnerable elderly people she is supposed to care for.

She now faces an inquiry by her bosses and a potential police probe into her seedy sideline. Our dossier is available to police and the council. Dihydrocodeine is a Class B drug but the maximum penalties for possession and supply are high.

Possession without a prescription can lead to a five-year jail term and anyone caught supplying them can be sentenced to 14 years. Pharmacist Nargis Ara said: “It can lead to dependency and this can spiral into the need for something stronger.”