Dealers targeting young mothers to smuggle drugs in to prisons, senior judge warns

Judge Mark Eades said cases of women with young children being caught during prison visits are becoming more prevalent.

His remarks were made as he gave a care worker a suspended jail sentence for trying to smuggle drugs to her father in Featherstone prison.

Mother-of-one Jay Lawrence had 16 and a quarter tablets of the heroin substitute Subutex hidden in her bra.

Mr Paul Spratt, prosecuting, said she was caught on arrival at the prison on December 14 last year when a drug sniffer dog picked her out.

Lawrence, aged 21, of Firtree Road, Birmingham, who admitted conveying a class C drugs into a prison, was given a 19-week sentence suspended for a year.

She claimed that she had 'forgotten' the drugs were in her bra and was not intending to hand them over but after a trial of issue Judge Eades ruled that she was lying.

He told her: "It strikes me you are a particularly foolish young woman. You lied to this court and in my view the reason you were taking those drugs in to prison, you were taking them to your father.

"Whether it was misguided loyalty to your father, it seems to me likely you didn't realise the full gravity of what you were doing. You are still growing up. You have a young child and you have work. The chances are you'll not re-offend again, a certainty if you wise up."

Mr Daniel Oscroft, defending, said Lawrence, a single parent, had a full time job as a carer looking after elderly people. She was the sole carer for her young son. Her ambition was to be a nurse but she had put her university course on hold because of the court case.

Mr Spratt told Stafford crown court that the Subutex, which was wrapped in cling film, would have a value inside prison of about £320.

Lawrence told the court that on the day she was due to visit her father she got an anonymous phone call asking her to pick up a package for her father who was due to be released.

She did not know the man and did not ask about the package. She put it inside her bra because she was on her way to work, where they were not allowed to take bags or have pockets in their clothing. She claimed she forgot the package was still there when she went to see her father.