A charity shop worker who laced a woman’s Canderel sweetener with a cocktail of drugs for two weeks in a bid to poison her has been jailed for four years after calling the police to confess he thought he had ‘murdered’ her.
Christopher Connolly crushed up a variety of painkillers, anti-depressants and pills for anxiety and sleep disorders before slipping them into his best-friend Denise Smith’s sugar substitute while he stayed at her house during the Christmas period in 2018.
The 29-year-old, from Chatham, Kent, would add four teaspoons of the drug-laced Canderel to the 66-year-old’s mugs of coffee, which she would drink up to ten times a day.
Unaware of Mr Connolly’s actions, on one occasion she complained that her drink tasted bitter and he was said to have ‘brushed off’ her remark telling her he had added some Baileys to it.
Christopher Connolly began lacing his best friend’s Canderel with a variety of drugs in December 2018 after she didn’t buy him a birthday present
His sinister plot began when Ms Smith, who later told police she regarded herself as a mother figure to Connolly, did not buy him a birthday present in December 2018.
She said he became angry when she said she could not afford a £50 computer game for his 28th birthday on December 21, 2018.
When questioned by police he said he wanted to make her feel, ‘a bit ill, a bit smashed’.
He continued to add the poisonous concoction to her drinks in ‘dribs and drabs’ over the festive period when she did not give him a Christmas gift either.
Connolly told police this was ‘a kick in the teeth’ from someone he thought was his best friend.
Connolly later claimed Ms Smith was ‘controlling and manipulative’, and had taken advantage of him both emotionally and financially, something she denies.
At one point Ms Smith, his co-worker from Rochester, Kent, felt so unwell that she phoned him to ask him to look after her, unaware that he was responsible.
Denise Smith, 66 from Rochester, Kent, was using the sweetener for her coffees, which she would drink around ten times a day
The poisoning only came to light when Connolly rang 999 on January 3 last year telling the operator he thought he had ‘murdered’ his friend.
Police arrested him and went to Ms Smith’s home where they had to wake her from a ‘drowsy’ state, the court heard.
She was unsteady on her feet, disorientated, complaining of back and kidney pain and had to be taken to hospital where she was hooked up to a drip.
A urine sample was found to contain as many as 11 medications, eight of which had not been prescribed to her.
Ms Smith suffered no organ impairment and only mild dehydration but doctors said the cocktail had put her at risk of ‘severe adverse effects and death’.
Connolly, of Chelmar Road, Chatham, Kent, admitted attempting to cause grievous bodily harm with intent and was jailed yesterday (April 27) for four years.
His pleas of not guilty to charges of attempted murder and administering a poison or noxious substance so as to endanger life were accepted by the prosecution.
Ms Smith, who attended the sentencing hearing at Maidstone Crown Court, Kent, spoke afterwards of her shock at discovering what her friend had done to her.
She also branded his jail term, of which he will only serve half before being automatically released on licence, as ‘lenient’.
‘It isn’t long enough. He has already done 16 months (on remand) and so will only do another eight months. He’ll be out for Christmas and I don’t think that’s fair,’ she said.
‘It was all biased towards him. I couldn’t believe it when the police told me. I clothed him, I fed him and helped him to tidy up his life.
‘While I was working he looked after my dog. I must have been really out of it because he was in my kitchen committing this offence and I was feeling really bad when I rang him to ask him to look after me.
‘My short-term memory is shot now and I don’t even remember him being there or even a lot of that Christmas.
‘It is absolutely scary what could have happened. He might have come back and finished me off.’
The charity worker crushed a variety of painkillers, anti-depressants and pills for anxiety and sleep disorder into Ms Smith’s Canderel sweetener (Picture: Stock)
The court heard the pair had been friends for about three years before he set about poisoning her, using a pestle and mortar to grind up the drugs to add to the sweetener and ultimately her coffee.
Prosecutor Peter Alcock said Connolly stated on the 999 call that he had been crushing up medication and adding it to her Canderel over a period of days.
He added: ‘He repeatedly said he wanted her dead, he wanted her gone, he might have murdered her. He said he was trying to poison her.’
‘He said he wanted her out of his life and she ‘needs to be gone. He said he chose the overdose method so she would die peacefully in her sleep and he wouldn’t stop until she was dead.’
Connolly made similar ‘confessions’ when arrested at the police station but during a subsequent two-hour interview he said he had just wanted to make her ill and feel ‘helpless without him’.
‘The defendant said the same thing happened at Christmas and this was proof there was no relationship there. He said she was meant to be his best friend.
‘He started in dribs and drabs but then gave more and added ‘other stuff in’. He said he thought he would give her enough to be ill but not to kill her.
‘But on January 2 he said he ‘put the whole lot in and just stirred it’. He said he had ‘quite a pile’ (of drugs) but didn’t know what.
‘When asked why he thought he might have killed her, he replied, ‘Because I didn’t understand how much I was giving her. What I knew was that it was a lot.’
Connolly left her home but went back to see Ms Smith the next day when she phoned saying she was unwell and asking him to look after her and her dog.
He spent several hours with her before leaving again that evening and then alerting police.
Ms Smith told officers she had been ill throughout Christmas, suffering with what she believed to be ‘an upset stomach’, as well as ‘sleeping a lot’ and shaking.
She now suffers from insomnia and increased anxiety, as well as memory problems.
Charles Langley, defending, told the court Connolly had a genuine belief Ms Smith was ‘controlling’ him and was left feeling he was ‘on a cliff edge’.
Connolly, who has no previous convictions, was also said to be suffering from an emotionally unstable personality disorder and autism.
On one occasion Ms Smith complained that her drink tasted bitter and Connolly was said to have ‘brushed off’ her remark telling her he had added some Baileys to it. He was sentenced to four years in prison at Maidstone Crown Court (above) on Monday, April 27
Passing sentence, Judge Tony Baumgartner said he accepted Connolly, who appeared in court via video prison link, had acted out of character and was remorseful.
But he told him: ‘You gave a number of reasons for your motive. Whatever the reason, it is obvious you had formed extremely strong negative feelings towards Ms Smith.
‘It was a sustained and repeated assault on a particularly vulnerable victim who was drugged, unaware and unwell.
‘There was very clear premeditation, an intention to cause more serious harm than was affected, and deliberate targeting of someone in their own home.
‘You were trusted by Denise Smith to come into her home and to be there as her guest.’
Connolly was made subject to an indefinite restraining order banning him from having any contact with Ms Smith or going to her home.