Source: Canberra Times (Australia) Website: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/ Contact: Thu, 14 Jan 1999 Author: Liz Armitage FORMER DRUGS CAMPAIGNER REFUSED BAIL Prominent drug-rehabilitation campaigner Marion Watson was refused bail yesterday on the grounds that she was likely to interfere with witnesses and compromise the police investigation into a large-scale heroin ring. Magistrate Karen Fryar said Watson had shown an "apparent lack of candour" in her dealings with police. She said there was a likelihood that Watson would obstruct the course of justice and commit further offences. Watson, 46, is charged with possessing a trafficable amount of heroin, supplying heroin, and possessing money suspected to be the proceeds of crime. She has been in custody since her arrest in Kingston on Christmas Eve. It is alleged that Watson, who was awarded the Order of Australia Medal last year for services to community health, worked the "day shift" delivering heroin to addicts as part of a large-scale, 24-hour operation. Opposing bail, Detective-Constable Chris Sheehan told the ACT Magistrates Court that Watson was a "key member" of the operation with intimate knowledge of its workings. Watson had told police she worked for a man known as George but she did not know his whereabouts. She had told police she knew a number of people who worked for George, and that the operation used drivers and hire cars to supply heroin around Canberra. Watson had said she collected heroin and left money under bushes, never meeting George or other people involved. She had been paid in heroin to support her $480-a-day habit. Constable Sheehan told the court, "We believe that the person George is not George, it is someone else that we have arrested already. He is definitely known to Ms Watson. "Ms Watson clearly knows more than she was telling us in her interview." Police feared valuable evidence could be lost if Watson were released, Constable Sheehan said. She could approach other people involved and compromise the investigation. Police expected to arrest two more men in relation to Watson's arrest. Defence counsel Craig Everson said Watson had performed an "active and valuable role" in the community. She had a powerful incentive to return to court because her family needed her, Mr Everson said. A senior public servant had offered to put up a $15,000 surety, and Watson was willing to undergo urine testing and daily reporting conditions. But Magistrate Fryar said there was a very strong prosecution case against Watson and it was likely she would go to jail. Watson, on her own account, had committed criminal acts in the past four months to support her heroin addiction even though she was in a unique position to accept the help and treatment available to her, Magistrate Fryar said. "She apparently chose the path of least resistance," she said. Watson is the former head of Canberra's Drug Referral and Information Centre and former director of Assisting Drug Dependents Inc. She helped establish Canberra's needle-exchange program, the ACT IV League (the first in Australia). She has been an advocate of a heroin trial for addicted users. - --- MAP posted-by: Don Beck