A WOMAN accused of administering a fatal dose of heroin to a man found collapsed in a street near her home yesterday denied ever supplying drugs.

Melanie Storey told Durham Crown Court that she was a heroin and crack cocaine user herself, but she said that she had to ask other people to inject her with drugs.

The prosecution allges she dealt drugs from her home, on the Tudhoe Moor estate, at Spennymoor, County Dur-ham, and often injected customers.

She is alleged to have injected local man Desmond Johns with heroin shortly before he was found dead on a pavement near her home, on November 5, last year.

The court has heard that the likely cause of 43-year-old Mr Johns' death was the high level of morphine in his system.

Ms Storey, 43, denies manslaughter, ten counts of supplying a class A drug, four of possessing drugs with intent to supply, and one of witness intimidation.

Giving evidence on the seventh day of her trial, she told the court she had been a heroin user for the two years before her arrest.

She said she had also taken crack cocaine with other users, but, when asked by defence barrister James Chadwin if she had ever acted as a dealer, she responded: "Never."

Mr Chadwin then asked her: "Did you at any period sell drugs, whether heroin or cocaine or dihydrocodine or methadone?"

Ms Storey responded: "No."

She went on to tell the court that she had to ask other heroin users to inject her because she didn't know how, as she had "very poor veins".

She also gave evidence to account for about £900 found at her home in each of two police raids, none of which she said was acquired through drug dealing.

Ms Storey will continue to give evidence when the trial resumes later today.