FORMER DRUGS CAMPAIGNER REFUSED BAIL

Prominent drug-rehabilitation campaigner Marion Watson was refused bail
yesterday on the grounds that she was likely to interfere with witnesses and
compromise the police investigation into a large-scale heroin ring.

Magistrate Karen Fryar said Watson had shown an "apparent lack of candour"
in her dealings with police.

She said there was a likelihood that Watson would obstruct the course of
justice and commit further offences.

Watson, 46, is charged with possessing a trafficable amount of heroin,
supplying heroin, and possessing money suspected to be the proceeds of
crime.

She has been in custody since her arrest in Kingston on Christmas Eve.

It is alleged that Watson, who was awarded the Order of Australia Medal last
year for services to community health, worked the "day shift" delivering
heroin to addicts as part of a large-scale, 24-hour operation.

Opposing bail, Detective-Constable Chris Sheehan told the ACT Magistrates
Court that Watson was a "key member" of the operation with intimate
knowledge of its workings.

Watson had told police she worked for a man known as George but she did not
know his whereabouts.

She had told police she knew a number of people who worked for George, and
that the operation used drivers and hire cars to supply heroin around
Canberra.

Watson had said she collected heroin and left money under bushes, never
meeting George or other people involved. She had been paid in heroin to
support her $480-a-day habit.

Constable Sheehan told the court, "We believe that the person George is not
George, it is someone else that we have arrested already. He is definitely
known to Ms Watson.

"Ms Watson clearly knows more than she was telling us in her interview."

Police feared valuable evidence could be lost if Watson were released,
Constable Sheehan said. She could approach other people involved and
compromise the investigation.

Police expected to arrest two more men in relation to Watson's arrest.

Defence counsel Craig Everson said Watson had performed an "active and
valuable role" in the community. She had a powerful incentive to return to
court because her family needed her, Mr Everson said.

A senior public servant had offered to put up a $15,000 surety, and Watson
was willing to undergo urine testing and daily reporting conditions.

But Magistrate Fryar said there was a very strong prosecution case against
Watson and it was likely she would go to jail.

Watson, on her own account, had committed criminal acts in the past four
months to support her heroin addiction even though she was in a unique
position to accept the help and treatment available to her, Magistrate Fryar
said. "She apparently chose the path of least resistance," she said.

Watson is the former head of Canberra's Drug Referral and Information Centre
and former director of Assisting Drug Dependents Inc.

She helped establish Canberra's needle-exchange program, the ACT IV League
(the first in Australia).

She has been an advocate of a heroin trial for addicted users.