PLAYBOY LINK TO BRIT DRUG GIRLS

0 Comments | Sunday Mirror, Sep 27, 1998

FOUR British women were last night locked up in foreign jails as police hunted a cocaine-smuggling playboy.

Sue Woodman, 35, and Gemma Purdy, 24, pleaded guilty to ferrying drugs to Britain for their Jamaican lover Fabian Paul.

Two other women, Joanne Hendy, 20, and 22-year-old Hayley Stewart, are thought to be innocent victims of an identical sting. Woodman, a chemist's manageress in Bristol, offered worker Joanne a free holiday to Jamaica after Paul had to lay low in Britain. Book shop boss Purdy, of Northants, offered Hayley the same. On their return Purdy and Hayley were stopped in Switzerland with pounds 250,000 in cocaine hidden in their shoes.

Woodman and Joanne were held in Jamaica after pounds 130,000 worth of the drug was found in the soles of their trainers. All four face a minimum 18 months in prison. Last night Joanne's mother Julie said: "She was stitched up - Joanne would never smuggle drugs."