Toy egg was full of drugs

A WOMAN was caught trying to smuggle a Kinder egg full of cannabis into HMP Northumberland when staff saw her “fiddling with her trousers” in the waiting area.

Louise Walker had arranged to visit a prisoner at the jail in November 2018 but was seen on CCTV “acting suspiciously” and taken to a holding room, where she handed over the package.

Newcastle Crown Court heard the 39-year-old had never met the inmate she was supposed to give the cannabis to, but had agreed to take it in order to pay off a drugs debt of her own.

Walker has now avoided an immediate jail term after a judge said she had “not stepped out of line” in the 18 months she had been waiting to be sentenced.

Prosecutor Neil Pallister said Walker attended HMP Northumberland on November 3 2018 to visit a prisoner.

He told the court: “The defendant retrieved a Kinder egg wrapped in plastic from her trousers. She said she hadn’t put drugs in the Kinder Egg, it had been handed to her already filled.”

The egg was later found to contain 5.36 grams of cannabis.

Mr Pallister said Walker “admitted taking the egg into prison but said she didn’t know what was inside”.

She told officers she was to be paid £250 for successfully passing the egg to the prisoner, but that she didn’t know him.

Walker later pleaded guilty to conveying a ‘list A’ article into a prison. The court heard she had been convicted of a similar offence in 2013.

Judge Tim Gittins sentenced Walker to six months in prison, but suspended the sentence for 18 months. Walker, of Churchill Square, Gilesgate, was also sentenced to 15 days of rehabilitation activity and a six month curfew ordering her to stay in between 8pm and 7am.