A DRUG dealer and mother-of-two who told a customer she would burn down his brother’s house if he did not hand over £5,000 has been jailed for blackmail.

Kafayat Sarumi, formerly of The Slade, Headington, but now living in Hillingdon, London, admitted committing the offence during October last year.

Joseph Templeton, prosecuting, said the 42-year-old had been selling heroin and crack cocaine to a customer she knew as Spike, who she then started demanding pay her £5,000.

He said: “There were threats in October which scared him and at some point he went to Oxford police station.

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“The were two voicemails left, one of which included a threat to his brother.

“He took those threats extremely seriously indeed.”

The barrister said Sarumi eventually handed herself in to the police on November 24 after officers left a message at her house.

He added that she has two convictions, in 2008 and 2011, for possessing class A drugs with intent to supply.

Kabir Sondhi, defending, said his client’s life had fallen apart in 2002 when a relationship broke down and she started taking crack cocaine.

He said: “Her conviction history started in 2003.

“She got desperate when times got bad, she fell into drug use and built up a substantial number of convictions for theft.

“This culminated in a conviction for the possession of class A drugs in rather similar circumstances to this offence.”

Mr Sondhi told Recorder Nicholas Syfret QC that Sarumi had been coerced into committing the blackmail by another drug dealer to whom she owed money.

Recorder Syfret told the defendant, who sobbed in the dock as sentence was passed, that she had told her victim “we are going to make sure you f***ing die” and “your brother’s house is going to burn down”.

He jailed her for two years and eight months on Thursday at Oxford Crown Court and told her to pay a £120 victims’ surcharge.



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