A former carer in a nursing home has been jailed for more than three years for being involved in heroin dealing.
Fiona Falls was a carer for 13 years and was addicted to heroin during that period, a court has heard.
She ran up a drugs debt and allowed her home to be used for storing a stash of heroin with a street value of up to £9,400.
Falls, 29, of Alison Street, Kirkcaldy, admitted that on June 8 2015, at her home address, she was concerned in the supply of a class A drug, diamorphine.
At Dunfermline Sheriff Court, defence solicitor Sarah Meehan said her client had struggled with a heroin addiction since the age of 17.
She had a drug debt of £1,500 that she was struggling to pay off. Her dealer had approached her and asked her to hold on to drugs to pay off some of the debt. The drugs were in her client’s possession for two days, Ms Meehan added.
The quantity of heroin found in Falls’s home was 94 grams, with a purchase value of £2,290 but which could have been sold on for up to £9,400.
Ms Meehan added: “She accepts it’s an extremely serious offence. She worked in a respectable position a carer in a nursing home for 13 years.
“She is also a carer for her grandmother who will be turning 100 years old in January.”
Jailing Falls for 38 months for having a “very significant” quantity of drugs, Sheriff Charles Macnair said: “You say it was to pay off a drug debt but this is still a commercial reason.”
He said it had to be made clear to anyone tempted to become involved in the supply of drugs “that the courts will deal with this in a severe manner”.