A DUBLIN heroin addict who underwent revolutionary heroin- blocking treatment costing Pounds 5 000 had his drug-dealing sentence adjourned to October
Stephen Comerford, of Drumfin Road, Ballyfermot, had the operation to surgically cleanse his body of heroin under a general anaesthetic at the Welbeck Clinic in Harley Street, London, last December._
Comerford's mother, Alice, told Judge Kieran O'Connor at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court she originally saved the money from her restaurant to pay for work in her home.
She said the operation cost Pounds 4,000 and tablets, at Pounds 170 a month, cost Pounds 1,000.
Mr Michael O'Higgins, defending, said the operation was designed to alleviate the physical need for heroin and to enable doctors and counsellors to carry out follow-up treatment in the weeks and months afterwards. He said the procedure was revolutionary costly and still relatively unknown.
Comerford (21) returned from London some months ago to plead guilty to possessing Pounds 1,400 worth of heroin for supply at Clondalkin on April 4th, 1996.
Det Garda Mary Fitzpatrick told Mr Roger Sweetman, prosecuting, she had become aware Comerford was dealing and got a warrant to search a mobile home at Mayfield Park, Clondalkin.
She found a bag concealed in a chassis underneath the mobile home which had seven grammes of white powder in it. Analysis proved it was heroin. Comerford was living there at the time with his father and accepted responsibility for the drugs.
Mrs Comerford said she was unaware her son was abusing drugs until the gardai told her. She put him out of her home and he went to live with his father from whom she was estranged. He could live with her again and work in the restaurant if he was drug free.
Judge O'Connor said it appeared to be in Comerford's best interest to adjourn sentence until October 17th next to give him a chance to prove he was drug free.