Pensioner prison visitor jailed for smuggling drugs into Wakefield Prison
A 69-year-old prison visitor who smuggled heroin into Wakefield Jail has herself been locked up for 12 months.
Widow Jessie 'June' Cooper had nearly 500 worth of heroin in a pouch of tobacco inside her handbag at the high security prison.
Grandmother Cooper, of Hollingthorpe Road, Hall Green, denied possession of 9.38g of heroin with intent to supply. She claimed she had no idea the Golden Virginia tobacco contained drugs.
Cooper was a trusted prison visitor of 14 years standing and even had her own keys to the main part of the prison, Leeds Crown Court heard.
On August 23 last year Cooper was on her way to a weekly quiz show she ran for 20 to 30 inmates at the Love Lane Jail. She walked past a prison drugs dog without incident.
But later a prison officer told her they had intelligence she was bringing drugs into the prison.
Cooper told police: "I couldn't believe it. I don't even know what drugs look like. I just said 'you're joking'. I said nobody has asked me to bring drugs in and I wouldn't do it. I don't know what drugs are."
She said the tobacco had been posted to her without a note. She thought it may have come from the brother of an inmate called Graham Cawley, who she visited at the jail. The brother lived in Blackpool where the package was posted from.
Cooper was found guilty after a three-day trial earlier this month.
The 69-year-old grandmother was sentenced today (Friday July, 25) by Mr Justice Blair. He said: "As a prison visitor you were the perfect person to bring drugs into prison and you abused that trust."
The judge said Cooper, who is of poor health, will spend six months in jail and the rest on licence.
Also before the court for sentencing was murderer Kevin Ernest Smith, 47, who admitted being concerned in the supply of heroin. He was serving life imprisonment at HMP Wakefield and arranged for the tobacco to be posted to Cooper. She initially refused to bring tobacco in but Smith "took advantage of her Christian side".
But Smith, the prison hairdresser, had arranged for a friend to put heroin inside the tobacco and to post it to Cooper.
The drugs had a street value of 465 but in prison were worth 2,345. User Smith said he intended to consume the drugs himself. Cooper has never accepted Smith played a role.
Smith was also sentenced to 12 months in jail, which will run alongside his life sentence.
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Wednesday 08 February 2012
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