Mum smuggled heroin and cocaine inside hair scrunchie to give to daughter at Yorkshire prison
A mum has been jailed after being caught smuggling drugs to her daughter in prison.
Amanda Howard was arrested at HMP New Hall, near Wakefield, after she was searched and prison officers found heroin and crack cocaine in a hair scrunchy around her wrist.
Leeds Crown Court heard it is Howard’s THIRD conviction for taking drugs into prion.
One of the previous convictions involved Howard taking drugs into prison to give to her son.
Howard, 48, of Parkfield Road, Bradford, was jailed for 28 months after pleading guilty to two offences of taking a drug into prison
The court heard how she was found in possession of the drugs during a visit to her daughter at the prison on January 14 this year.
Officers found two wraps of heroin and two wraps of crack cocaine.
James Littlehales, mitigating, said Howard committed the offence as she was concerned for her daughter’s safety if is she did not deliver the drugs.
Mr Littlehales said a man had an influence over Howard and she was recruited to “do the dirty work”.
Sentencing Howard, Recorder Joanne Kidd said: “Drugs have a corrupting and corrosive impact within prison.
“It affects the safety of inmates and the ability of staff to protected them from bullying, drug use and drug supply.
“Your own daughter fell foul of the same culture during her time on remand.
“The message has to go out and there has to be a degree of deterrent so that people fully understand that people who take drugs in to a custodial setting must be deterred and the punishment will be significant.”