Law on tackling drug use 'must be made clearer'

MPs and housing experts are also urging ministers to amend the law following a landmark ruling that Ruth Wyner and John Brock of the charity Wintercomfort had created "a haven for heroin users" at a drop-in centre for the homeless.

Solicitors are already preparing to appeal against Judge Jonathan Haworth's decision to convict the pair for ignoring drug dealing at the charity's Cambridge-based Bus Project.

The pair are also appealing against the length of their sentences, which are understood to be longer than the average for convicted drug dealers.

After a seven week trial at Cambridge Crown Court, Wintercomfort director Wyner was sentenced to five years in prison and project manager Brock to four years for allowing heroin to be supplied on their premises.

A preliminary appeal hearing is due later this month, as campaigners prepare a petition for their release and the National Homeless Alliance, of which Wintercomfort was a member, prepared to lobby the Home Office to clarify the law.

The NHA's national day centre policy co-ordinator Pauline MacDonald said that, although the case was "quite individual", the judgement jeopardised those who work with vulnerable clients.

She said: "There needs to be clarity from the government and clarity from organisations like ourselves for those who work in direct services."

Meanwhile Peter Bottomley MP has asked Tony Blair to review the laws on providing shelter to drug users.

The Conservative member for Worthing also wants scrutiny of "the vulnerability of managers, staff and trustees of day and night shelters to charges of not preventing the use or the supply of banned drugs."

He told Housing Today: "It is very important if we are going to tackle addiction as well as other causes of vulnerability to have places where they can be. I think that what happened in Cambridge is a direct threat to most of the things the Prime Minister has been talking about in recent weeks."