GRANDMOTHER Julie Howard-Allen has spoken of her nightmare after police arrested her for selling bath salts which they suspected were actually drugs.
The 65-year-old was left humiliated after drugs squad officers twice raided her Scarramouch shop, in Cheltenham's High Street, on suspicion of selling illegal highs.
Items seized by police included Chinese-made bath products called 'Pikey Dust' and 'Blast Off'.
She was arrested in front of shocked staff and customers and taken away for questioning, before being charged with supplying controlled drugs and possessing them with intent to supply.
The shopkeeper's nightmare has finally come to an end after the prosecution dropped all charges against her this week.
She told the Echo yesterday: "Of course it's a relief it's all over and I feel vindicated. The whole thing was a nightmare.
"I was raided in the shop and twice at my home in front of neighbours, and locked up in the cells twice. But I knew I hadn't done anything wrong.
"I bought these bath salts in good faith from reputable suppliers. You'd have to be a chemist to know that there are illegal substances in them.
"I don't blame the police but I don't think they were very well informed."
Mrs Howard-Allen, who has run her shop and teashop for more than 30 years, said trade had been badly hit by the unfounded allegations.
She told Gloucester Crown Court this week that many customers had stopped coming because her good name had been tainted by suggestions she was a drug dealer.
"I have never knowingly broken the law and I never would do," said Mrs Howard-Allen, whose alternative lifestyle shop offers tattoos and piercings, sells joss sticks, incenses and talcs, clothes and jewellery, and also has an art deco style teashop.
The charges against her were that she possessed a drug called JWH-250 with intent to supply on March 29 last year and also that she possessed another drug, known as MDPDB, with intent to supply. A third charge alleged that she supplied MDPDB on that date.
Offering no evidence against her, prosecutor Janine Woods told the court the Crown still maintain that the bath salts contained illegal drugs.
A forensic scientist had analysed the salts and found the banned substances, she said.
But the prosecution had decided not to proceed because Mrs Howard-Allen had bought them from two large companies in 2011 and they had themselves thought they were lawful.
"We say they are illegal but that is not really the issue," she said. "The issue is whether she believed at the time that it was legal. Bearing in mind she is a lady of good character it is not in the public interest to pursue this to trial."
Judge Jamie Tabor QC ordered the police to return seized stock and paperwork to her forthwith. He also granted her a defendant's costs order.
OPINION, P8
