A MUM who illegally imported 2,400 tranquilisers on the internet from Pakistan to "relieve pain and discomfort" while waiting for an operation has narrowly avoided being sent to jail.
Magistrates were told that Angela Vanes, 42, ordered the Temazepam tablets to relieve her pain and help her sleep while waiting for a back operation after doctors changed her treatment plan.
But the mum's attempt to self-medicate with £500 worth
of pills landed her in court after HM Customs intercepted the packages and raided her home.
Vanes was sentenced at Hartlepool Magistrates' Court yesterday after admitting possessing a class C drug at an earlier hearing.
After reading a pre-sentence report by the probation service, town justices gave the jobless woman a six-week prison sentence, suspended for twelve months.
Keith Fisher, chairman of the magistrates bench, said: "We consider that the custodial threshold has been passed by the high total value of the drugs and the deliberate intention to acquire them.
"However, after considering a report we feel able to suspend that sentence to help the probation service provide intervention."
Vanes also received a 12 month community order with supervision.
Samantha Morgan-Bayliss, prosecuting, said: "Police in Hartlepool were notified by HM Customs that two parcels containing tablets had been intercepted coming from Pakistan.
"She had paid £500 for them and said there were so many because there was a minimum order."
A controlled drop of the packages was arranged by the Post Office on October 7, last year, at Willow Walk, where the defendant's son Geoffrey Vanes lived.
A warrant was executed and one of the packages had been opened by the son who was found to have no involvement in the purchase.
Angela Vanes's home in Raby Gardens, Hartlepool, was also searched and documents relating to Pakistan were recovered, phones were seized and Vanes was arrested.
Vanes, who the court heard has 15 previous convictions for 27 offences but none drug-related, told police she did not intend to sell any tablets but needed them after becoming reliant on the valium-based drug.
She said she had changed doctors two years ago and a prescription that she had been given since 1991 was stopped as medics tried to get her off the drug.
John Relton, mitigating, said: "For many years she's relied on these tablets to relieve pain and discomfort to the point where it's almost an addiction.
"Doctors have tried to stop her from that course of action but she has gone to the black market, in particular the foreign market."
