Ref. 31022-79LITTLE more than a year ago Adele Still was a college student just starting out on a career as a beautician.

More recently, she has appeared before Swindon magistrates charged with possessing heroin after being picked up in a police raid on the flat where she was dossing with her drug addict boyfriend.

Still, 18, of Beaulieu Close, Toothill, who admitted the charge, was sleeping on a mattress at the flat when police executed a search warrant and found heroin with a street value of £80 next to the bed, prosecutor Karen Boyes told the court.

She said the teenager told officers she and her boyfriend both had a two-bag-a-day habit.

In court, her solicitor Steve Beales said she had been going out with her boyfriend for 18 months. Before that she had been on a college course in beauty therapy and then studied at the North Star campus.

She held down a job at Michelle's Hair and Beauty in Purton.

"That was a year ago," he said. "Now she is not working. She lives on benefit and is sleeping on a mattress in the front room."

Mr Beales explained that it was the first time Still had appeared in court.

She had begun smoking heroin six months ago, not long after losing a baby five months into her pregnancy, although he stressed she was not claiming the miscarriage was what started her on the habit.

He pointed to the effect her lifestyle was having on her already slight frame, telling the magistrates that she had dropped from a size 10 to a size six.

"I am hoping that after this hearing she will take positive steps to address her drug use and her future," he said.

She had made contact with the Swindon and Wiltshire Alcohol and Drugs Service and it was now up to her to take the next step.

Imposing an 18-month conditional discharge on Still, chairman of the bench Ruth Fitzsimons said: "Only you can sort yourself out. We hope we won't see you again."

Still was also ordered to pay £50 prosecution costs.

She declined to comment to the Adver.

Tina Clarke