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by ROISIN GADELRAB
 
Addict caught preparing heroin in playground given Asbo

A HOMELESS drug-addict who was caught with friends preparing heroin in a children’s playground, has been banned from begging or sleeping rough anywhere in Camden.
An anti-social behaviour order (Asbo) placed on Eugene Mulligan, 41, at Highbury Corner Magistrates Court last week (Friday) also means he is prohibited from entering most parts of the borough.
Camden Council, along with Camden police, successfully convinced the court an Asbo was the only fair and proportionate means of dealing with Mulligan.
The court considered evidence from PC Simon Collins, based at Kentish Town Police Station, that Mulligan was caught with friends ‘cooking-up’ heroin in an under-10s play area in broad daylight on the Curnock Street Estate.
The court heard he slept in the street outside the World’s End pub on Camden Road surrounded by uncapped hypodermic needles and that he openly injected what is believed to be heroin in Sainsbury’s Car Park on Camden Road. The court heard that on numerous occasions Mulligan begged from people at cash points outside Camden’s banks.
The court was told that he attempted to sell books in the street outside the Underworld pub in Camden High Street, becoming verbally abusive to officers who informed him he did not have a license to trade. In a statement submitted to the court, PC Collins said: “Mr Mulligan has refused all offers of help from the Street Services Team, including the offer of housing and drug treatments. This application is seen as a last resort due to Mr Mulligan’s reluctance in ridding himself of his drug habit.”
Although Ann Corlett, defending, said Mulligan was not contesting the order, she requested conditions banning him from begging and sleeping rough in Camden to be dropped from the order.
She said: “My concern is the issue of an existing criminal offence being made the subject of an Asbo. The issue in this case is begging.”
She also urged the court not to turn rough sleeping into a criminal matter.
Granting the order in its entirety the judge told Mulligan: “Begging is conduct associated with the issue of sleeping on the streets and associated with drugs.”
He added: “I’m sure nobody sleeps rough out of choice but people do find it antisocial, they don’t like seeing it and it does cause distress.”
 
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