Convicted murderer Ernest Smith, 47, took advantage of retired St James's Hospital nurse 69-year-old Jessie 'June' Cooper's 'Christian side' to bring the drugs into Wakefield Jail, Leeds Crown court heard.

The court also heard Smith had lost his job as prison hairdresser since the incident and saw it as the most shameful in his 30-year criminal career.

Cooper, of Hollingthorpe Road, Hall Green, Wakefield, had been a prison visitor at Wakefield Jail for 15 years and was trusted to such an extent she was allowed her own set of keys to move around the prison wings as she wished.

On one of the widow's three-times weekly visits on August 23 last year prison security staff found nine grammes of heroin in a Golden Virginia tobacco pouch in her handbag during a routine search.

She was rumbled on her way to a weekly quiz night she ran for 30 inmates in the chapel at the jail which houses some of the country's most notorious killers.

She denied possessing heroin with intent to supply but was convicted by a Leeds Crown Court jury.

Smith, who had previously pleaded guilty to being concerned in the supply of class A drugs, was handed a 12 month sentence to run at the same time as his life sentence.

He was jailed for a minimum of 18 years at Sheffield Crown Court in July 2003 after being convicted of being the getaway driver after the gangland New Year's Day 2003 shotgun murder of Lester Divers in Sheffield.

The court heard the heroin found on Cooper had a street value of £465 but was worth £2,345 in prison.

Prosecutor Mark McKone said: "Smith saw Mrs Cooper as a regular visitor and said he had effectively used her.

"He said he started chatting with her, he said she was a Christian and he took advantage of her goodwill.

"He said he arranged for her to bring tobacco into prison and he said he arranged for the tobacco to be posted to her but that he had got a friend to put the heroin inside."

Mr McKone added: "Smith did say Mrs Cooper refused at first but as he put it he really took advantage of her Christian side."

The court heard Cooper has no previous convictions and is in poor health.

Jailing Cooper, Mr Justice Blair told her: "As a trusted prison visitor you were the perfect person to bring drugs into the prison and you abused that trust.

"I think the fairest view is that you knew you had controlled drugs with you but did not know what kind of drugs."

Cooper said during her trial how she saw drugs as "evil" and claimed the tobacco was posted to her address from a mystery person and she put it in her bag and forgot about it.