NHS worker jailed for trying to smuggle drugs into Creamfields

After being searched following indication from a drugs dog, Courtney Healey was found with 14 wraps of cocaine in her bag.

The court heard that despite once being the type of person that was clapped for in the NHS, she has now ‘fallen from grace’.

The 21-year-old appeared before Chester Crown Court for sentencing on Tuesday after pleading guilty to possession of cocaine with the intent to supply.

Prosecuting, Richard Edwards said that the offence took place on August 27 at around 6.40pm after Healy was found with 8.9 grams of cocaine in the search tent with a value between £420 - £1,100.

In a police interview, she originally told officers that she was taking the drugs in for her friends – but this wasn’t the truth.

When her mobile phone was analysed, text messages discovered that she was smuggling the drugs in for a man who was already inside the festival who had offered to pay her £200.

Creamfields Music Festival

A series of text messages were read out to the court. Multiple messages included Healy asking her friends in a group chat how they were taking their drugs in.

One person responded: “Oh my god I am dreading this, you are all smackheads.”

In another message talking about marijuana, Healy said: “I smoke it every day. I feel like I might rip someone’s head off otherwise.

“My mum would actually send me to jail if she found out I done it.”

Others consisted of Healy telling friends she was going to make £200 for smuggling the drugs.

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As she put her head down in the dock, judge Steven Everett said: “Yes, she can hang her head. This is not a naïve young woman is it?

“When she made a prepared statement, she clearly didn’t realise the police would read all of these messages.”

Mr Edwards told the court about the impact of the Daresbury music festival on the community and how there are many opportunities to surrender drugs at the festival with amnesty bins.

He also highlighted the posters at the festival which warn festivalgoers about the consequences of being caught with drugs.

The court heard how Healy, from Maesteg in South Wales, has no previous convictions.

Defending, Bernice Campbell said: “This is a difficult mitigation exercise for me,

“This is a young woman who has ruined her life.”

Ms Campbell described Healy as having a ‘devil-may-care’ attitude to drugs but said at the time she was going through a ‘low point’ in her life so used drugs to assist with this feeling.

She said it is a ‘terrible, terrible’ shame for Healy and that she was just a ‘go-between’ rather than being concerned in the onward supply of drugs.

The court heard how Healy how now ‘lost a promising career’ as a health care support worker in the NHS.

Concluding, referring to Healy’s text messages, judge Everett said: “It shows she is completely enveloped in the drug culture and is very blasé about it.”

He added: “You can’t be both – a health care support worker and somebody that is involved in the supply of terrible class A drugs. And you chose the latter.

“What I have seen shows you were not a person of good character for quite a while before this.”

Describing Healy’s behaviour as ‘evil’, judge Everett handed her a three-year prison sentence.