She admitted one count of importation of a controlled drug.
The Royal Court heard that Kaylene Anne Carragher was arrested at the Airport on 5 March shortly after arriving in the Island aboard an easyJet flight from Liverpool. She told officers she was intending to stay in Jersey for one or two days and showed them a confirmed hotel booking. She also admitted having taken cocaine the night before her visit.
Crown Advocate Chris Baglin, prosecuting, told the court that Carragher later admitted trying to smuggle in 82.4g of cocaine that was just over 40% in purity. Unadulterated, the advocate said, the drugs were worth between £6,500 and £8,100. But, by ‘cutting it’ with other substances it had a potential street value of anywhere between £13,000 and £16,200.
Advocate James Bell, defending, told the court that 31-year-old Carragher had no previous convictions and very much regretted what she had done. Her actions, he said, were prompted because she was vulnerable after her relationship broke up, and she had lost her job as a chef.
In delivering the court’s sentence, the Bailiff, Timothy Le Cocq, told Carragher it was mainly because of her co-operation in providing the police with valuable information about the person who had given her the drugs and her contact in Jersey, and her willingness to have this mentioned in court, that had saved her from a longer sentence. The prosecution had asked the court to send her to prison for six-and-a-half years.
Mr Le Cocq said the drugs trade was ‘founded upon fear, violence and intimidation’ and that the court would ‘reward’ those couriers who provided information to the authorities, and were willing to have their actions mentioned in court, by giving them reduced sentences. Mr Le Cocq said he hoped others would follow her example. He added that prison was an opportunity for her to ‘turn her life around’.
Jurats Charles Blampied, Jerry Ramsden, and Gareth Hughes were sitting.
