A woman has claimed that blackmailing drug dealers made threats against her home and her job in their bid to force money out of her.

When they took other action to get the £400 they claimed she owed them, she went to the police, although she knew she had already been cautioned for possessing heroin and could face a drugs charge herself.

Referred to only as Miss X, the woman told detectives how the activities of the Bell brothers allegedly led to her heroin habit escalating over a few months from about £50 a week until she was using £50 worth "just about every day".

They would give her drugs on credit, then, if she couldn't pay later, add "interest" at £30 a time, until her debt reached £250, she alleged.

To fend off their money demands, she handed over her family credit book to John Bell so he could take her benefits.

She claimed she is now trying to "rebuild her life", at a drugs clinic and is all but free of drugs.

Alan Bell, 37, of Cockret Road, Selby, and John Bell, 49, of Flaxley Road, Selby, deny blackmail.

Together with Ian Rushton, 41, of no fixed address, they also deny conspiracy to supply drugs.

John Bell, Rushton and Martin Keenan, 20, of Charles Street, Selby, each deny one charge of burglary.

All addresses were being used at the time of arrest.

Miss X alleged that after she gave details of the alleged drug trade to police an intermediary, claiming to act for Alan Bell, offered her money to drop her allegations.

But she told him no.

"It is something I ought to do and I cannot back out of it. It would have been easier to run away and not be here today," she told the jury.

"I have been called a grass by people," she added. "It was very difficult for me."

She claimed that to begin with, she was a small-time user, buying £10 of heroin about five times a week from another user who was financing her habit by low-key drug-dealing.

But the Bell brothers took over her supplier's "business" and refused to sell her less than £25 worth at a time.

Because she was having to buy more, her habit grew until she was buying £50 worth "just about every day".

And she described how the brothers and Rushton used a three-bedroom old person's style bungalow in Charles Street, Selby, as their drug base.

She alleged seeing the brothers buy rocks of heroin about the size of cricket balls and crush them up. She claimed she saw "a lot of people" at the house getting drugs.

When she was unable to pay, the Bell brothers threatened to tell her boyfriend and others who did not know about her drug habit.

"I would have lost my job, my home, my partner," she said.

The trial continues.

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