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GP 'fought daughter's addiction'

Thursday 14 October 1993 18:02 EDT
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A DOCTOR accused of supplying cannabis to her sick daughter yesterday told a court how she fought for 10 years to stop her using the drug, but then changed her mind.

Dr Ann Biezanek, 65, threw her daughter Lucy out of her home because of her links with drug suppliers, she told Liverpool Crown Court. Lucy, who was 21 at the time, had told her she was using cannabis and was under pressure from her suppliers to steal blank prescription pads.

Dr Biezanek, a locum GP and homeopath, from Wallasey, Merseyside, has pleaded not guilty to five offences involving supplying and possessing cannabis between June 1991 and February last year.

She told the court that Lucy started smoking cannabis in 1981 to calm her down. They argued about the drug for 10 years, but in 1990 Dr Biezanek changed her mind.

The court has heard that the doctor does not deny giving the drug to her daughter three times a day after she moved back in with her in August 1991 after living in a caravan in Scotland. Lucy had suffered for 13 years with a serious and intractable illness.

Michael Abelson, for the prosecution, has told the jury that Dr Biezanek felt compelled to supply the drug to her and believed that otherwise her daughter would have died or suffered serious bodily harm.

Dr Biezanek explained that Lucy's problems in obtaining cannabis increased. 'She was being taken advantage of financially. I was in despair.'

The case continues today.

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