WOMAN CREATED A HAVEN FOR DRUG DEALING: CHARITY HEAD SENTENCED TO FIVE
YEARS' JAIL

The head of a homeless charity was jailed for five years yesterday for
allowing heroin to be supplied at its premises.

Ruth Wyner, 49, ran homeless projects in Norwich and Yarmouth before moving
to Cambridge to take over as director of the charity Wintercomfort.

At her trial last month, King's Lynn Crown Court heard a drop-in centre run
from its offices in the city was more like a supermarket for drug dealers.

Sentencing Wyner at Cambridge Crown Court Judge Jonathan Howarth told her
she had ignored her responsibilities.

"You had created a haven for drug dealing", he said. "You placed at risk
the very people you had pledged yourself to help."

"By February 1998 up to 10 dealers a day were operating, they ere there for
the sole purpose of their trade.

"Customers came from 30 or 40 miles away with the sole intention of buying."

Supporters of Wyner and her co-defendant John Brock shouted abuse at the
judge as he sentenced the pair. Brock, also 49, was sentenced to four
years. Both have lodged appeals against their sentences.

Wyner and Brock were convicted after a six-week trial. Wyner, of Scotland
Road, Cambridge and Brock, of Little Abington, Cambs, had denied allowing
heroin to be supplied between February and May 1998.

During the trial, the jury heard police used hidden cameras to film pushers
passing wraps of heroin on the premises.

Detectives raided the premises after an addict died of an overdose in the
bath. The operation led to eight people being arrested and jailed for up
to four years.

After the trial it emerged Wyner had been suspended from a housing project
in Norwich over allegations she allowed people to smoke cannabis in their
rooms. The incident was ruled inadmissible as evidence in the trial.

The defendants said they felt it necessary to maintain the confidentiality
of clients, even if they suspected them of drug dealing. They said this
was necessary to protect staff from the possibility of violent reprisals.

But Judge Howarth said: "It is this courts duty to make it clear that those
who harbour, or by their knowing inaction encourage the trade in heroin on
premises for which they are responsible must expect an immediate custodial
sentence."

"When they do so on the scale here, up to 10 dealers a day over the time
scale encompassed by this indictment, then that sentence must be of length
sufficient to make it crystal clear that such a breach of the law cannot be
tolerated."