A mum with a bad back committed a violent robbery at a chemists to get painkillers - and then returned days later to burgle dozens more.
Former dental nurse Sarah Gray, 43, throttled a student on work experience during the robbery as she desperately tried to acquire potent drug dihydrocodeine.
Manchester Crown Court heard she ran into the shop and shrieked: “Where’s the dihydrocodeine? Tell me where it is or I will kill you - you have got to give it to me.”
When she returned to the scene of the crime later that month, the pharmacist recognised her and ran out of the shop in terror.
Gray helped herself to more packets of prescription opiates, which she was seen stuffing into her mouth as she fled the scene of the 9am burglary.
The two offences - committed last November at the Everest Pharmacy in Ardwick - mean Gray, of Carnegie Avenue, Levenshulme , has been convicted of stealing from pharmacies four times since July 2015.
But she walked free from court for the latest offences after a judge gave her a suspended sentence for the ‘acts of desperation.’
Manchester Crown Court heard that Gray had been a married mum-of-four with a good work record.
But she ‘lost everything’ after back pain and sciatica led to a ten-year addiction to painkillers, the judge was told. At the time of the raids at Everest on Stockport Road she was homeless, unable to register with a GP, and couldn’t get the pills she was addicted to on prescription, the court heard.
Her lawyer, Sara Haque, said: “She was addicted to these so strongly she acted in a way she would never normally act. Every time she took her medication she would go into panic mode as to when they were going to run out, and became obsessed with the idea of where her medication would come from.
“She describes spending time counting her medication to work out how long it would last. And, when she was registered with a GP, she would attend repeatedly to beg for medication.”
Rachel White, prosecuting, said on November 7 a female pharmacist and a student on work experience were behind the counter at Everest in Ardwick, when Gray ran in and shouted: “Where’s the dihydrocodeine?”
The two women tried to block her from entering the restricted area of the pharmacy, but she shoved both of them backwards to the area where prescription drugs were kept, grabbed hold of them, demanded the pills, and threatened to ‘kill’ them.
The pharmacist was able to free herself from Gray’s grip. But Gray then grabbed hold of the student’s throat and squeezed tightly, telling the pharmacist: “I swear if you don’t give it me, I will kill her.”
Gray kept hold of the young woman by the throat, pulling her backwards and forwards, until she was told where the drugs were kept. She then grabbed hold of the student’s face and head, forced her to the shelves, which she ransacked, before fleeing with a box of 30 tablets intended for a customer.
On November 26, when the pharmacist was working there alone, Gray returned at opening time. After the pharmacist ‘ran out screaming’, Gray helped herself to around 100 pills.
But a male passer-by stopped her close to the scene as she ‘threw tablets around and tried to eat some’, Miss White said.
The court heard the offences happened weeks after Gray completed a community order she was sentenced to for two previous pharmacy burglaries last summer, when she grabbed drugs from behind the counter.
Miss Haque presented the judge with a psychiatric report detailing Gray’s mental health problems linked to drug use - including anxiety, depression, bipolar and panic disorders. And she also detailed how remorseful Gray had been profoundly affected by the loss of a 11-month old son in 2001. She was being treated with methadone in prison, the court heard, where she was doing courses in drug awareness, IT and horticulture.
Sentencing, Recorder Olivia Magennis said the offences had left the victims ‘terrified and traumatised’.
But after taking into account the psychiatric report, Gray’s remorse, and the fact she has spent seven months behind bars on remand, the judge said she felt able to pass a suspended sentence.
Gray was ordered to serve 21 months, suspended for two years, with a 40-day rehabilitation activity requirement. A restraining order bans her from going near the Everest Pharmacy at Stockport Road, Ardwick, for the next three years.
