‘I was unaware of heroin relapse’ Death an ‘isolated case’


A WOMAN died after inject- ing heroin contaminated with anthrax into her leg, a Maid- stone inquest heard. Serious crime officers were alerted when ‘Rio’ Fraser (45), of Tonbridge Road, died of mul- tiple organ failure a year ago. There had been a spate of deaths related to anthrax-cont- aminated heroin in Glasgow in 2009, but nothing similar in England. Coroner Patricia Harding


of dealing with similar cases. Mrs Fraser died on Novem-


ber 3 after sepsis set in, due to anthrax infection. The coroner also heard from


said Mrs Fraser’s death ap- peared to be an isolated case – a “deep tragedy”. The inquest was told that US-born


Rio Fraser and husband Andrew


Mrs Fraser met husband-to-be Andrew via an internet music forum in 2007. She moved to Maidstone and they mar- ried the following year. Mr Fraser, a carpet estimator and fit-


ter, said Rio told him she was a drug user while in the US but that she had been ‘clean’ for four years. He told the coroner he was not aware


she had relapsed in the period be- fore her death and thought the drugs she took were “above board” as she got them from her GP. “Maybe Iwas naive,” he added. Mrs Fraser was sick one evening in


late October when her husband re- turned from work. She showed him her infected, swollen right thigh. In the early hours she was taken to Maidstone Hospital by ambulance. Intensive care consultants contacted experts in Glasgow who had experience


drug psychotherapist Sandra Barratt, of the private addic- tion clinic, Adastra. She said Mrs Fraser had been much troubled by things in her past in America. “That was one of the reasons for her using heroin,” said Mrs Barratt. Mrs Fraser had started vol- untary work at Adastra in March 2010 but stopped three


weeks before her death after becoming depressed at not being able to find a job in the treatment field, added Mrs Barratt.


goes for broke STAFF from a Maidstone se- curity firm turned the tables and dressed up as robbers for a charity dragon boat event. Landmark Security, based in Albion Place, raised over £4,000 for Action for Children by dressing up as burglars and racing in Chinese-style dragon boats over a 250m course in BewlWater. Bearsted man LiamWalsh, the firm’s managing director, said: “This is the first year that


we have entered the Dragon Boat race, so we thought we’d try and do something eye catching. Hopefully 16 burglars, with bags of swag, rowing frantically in a dragon boat did the trick – we were just glad that nobody got confused and called 999!” The company came second from 30 teams.


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of anthrax poisoning WHENKent Police heard aboutMrs Fraser’s death, Det Insp Lee Whitehead was tasked with estab- lishing the source of the “anthrax poisoning”. Officers found five amps of heroin at her ter-


raced home, 342 Tonbridge Road, which were sent to the Ministry of Defence laboratories at Porton Down, Salisbury, for testing. The samples were not contaminated, nor was other drug paraphernalia found during the search. Det Insp Whitehead said colleagues throughout


Kent and neighbouring counties were alerted to the death, but no other anthrax-contaminated cases were reported. Coroner Patricia Harding concluded: “It ap-


pears it was a totally isolated incident.” She recorded a verdict of accidental death.


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