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Mum Francesca Davies walks free after supplying drug that depressed Shruti Baral used to kill herself in Maidstone

By: Keith Hunt

Published: 00:01, 30 November 2014

A young mother who supplied the drug that a depressed student took to kill herself has been spared a jail sentence.

Francesca Davies gave 22-year-old Shruti Baral five grams of cocaine the day before she was found dead at her home in Vinters Park, Maidstone, on February 17 last year.

The former Invicta Girls Grammar School pupil was found in her bedroom at the house in Emsworth Grove by her 17-year-old brother Satchet.

Shruti was said to have a 'happy exterior'

An inquest in August last year heard the bright geography undergraduate had written on her wrist: “Take my organs.”

Despite her “happy exterior”, she suffered from depression, Coroner Patrick Harding concluded she committed suicide after taking a fatal dose of the drug with a 69 per cent purity.

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Davies, of Farningham Close, Maidstone, admitted being concerned in supplying the cocaine.

Police officers went with a warrant for her at other addresses in the town but she made contact on June 20.

Davies, 22, who worked for the Hilton Hotel, had obtained the drug for Shruti from a boyfriend, who was a drug dealer, Maidstone Crown Court was told.

Shruti Baral

Judge David Griffith-Jones QC stressed there was no suggestion Davies knew of Shruti’s plan to kill herself.

“I don’t treat Miss Baral’s sad demise as an aggravating feature,” he said. “You are a young woman of previous good character.

“I accept your remorse is genuine and there is a low risk of re-offending" - Judge David Griffith-Jones

“I am satisfied it is appropriate to regard this as something of an aberration - something that was quite out of character for you.

“I accept your remorse is genuine and there is a low risk of re-offending.

“While I take the view a prison sentence is demanded given the seriousness of the offence, mitigation and the effect your immediate incarceration would have on your very young child lead me to say it can be properly suspended.”

mpu2

Suspending 18 months for two years with 200 hours unpaid work, the judge added: “You have escaped immediate imprisonment today but you are not out of the woods.

“I very much hope you do not let me down and find yourself back here for breaching requirements.”

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