Colchester mum earned £109k from drugs to fund luxury life

Emma McDougall, 38, earned more than £100,000 a year from dealing gabapentin, zopiclone, etizolam, tramadol, temazepam, diazepam, alprazolam, pregabalin, and tapentadol in an operation described by a judge as “essentially a home pharmacy”, Ipswich Crown Court heard on Friday.

Peter Gair, prosecuting, said police uncovered the scale of her offending when they investigated the phone of one of her customers, who had died from an unrelated drug overdose.

Sentence - Emma McDougall appeared before a judge at Ipswich Crown Court on Friday (Image: Daniel Rees, Newsquest)

Police searched McDougall’s address in Colchester in July 2022 while she was away on holiday in Venice with her then fiancé Joe Gooch.

Her children were at home at the time officers entered the house and were being looked after by one of McDougall’s relatives, the court heard.

Inside, officers found boxes containing “many thousands of tablets of class A and class C” drugs with a combined street value of more than £55,000.

The defendant, now of Honeybee Grove, Tiptree, was told of the police search and returned to the UK without the phone she had used to deal the drugs to more than 100 customers.

She admitted one charge of possession of class A drugs with intent to supply, and eight charges of possession of class C  drugs with intent to supply.

Guilty - Emma McDougall admitted all the charges against her (Image: Daniel Rees, Newsquest)

Further investigations from a police team lead by Det Con Mike Heslegrave found McDougall had opened bank accounts with Nationwide, Barclays and Monza, providing the latter with information suggesting she worked full time and earned £150,000 a year before tax.

Outgoings from the account showed she spent thousands of pounds on postage and packaging of the drugs, with her gross income from the operation coming to £109,000 in the year leading up to her arrest.

Mr Gair continued: "She was in receipt of benefits at the time due to having five children.

“She accepts she acquired a Gucci watch for the work she carried out, and there’s other evidence of the lifestyle from her bank accounts that she made payments to Ryanair for a flight to Rome.

Sale - the defendant made a gross profit of more than £100,000 in the year up to her arrest from selling the drugs (Image: Pexels Stock Image) “Three foreign holidays in the space of two months would suggest certain financial advantage was had beyond meeting her own habit.”

Judge David Wilson spared McDougall jail because of her commitments looking after four of her five children, including her role as primary carer for one who has severe autism and ADHD.

McDougall was sentenced to two years in prison suspended for 18 months in addition to rehabilitation and trail monitoring requirements.