A 37-year-old woman from Liverpool was sentenced at Douglas Courthouse on 1 July 2022 to four and a half years in prison for smuggling cocaine and heroin hidden inside her body to the Isle of Man.[1] Deemster Graeme Cook, the island’s judge, also imposed a five-year exclusion order banning her from returning to the island after her release.[1] She had admitted two counts of possession of a Class A drug with intent to supply and one count of possession of cannabis.[1]

Police arrested her on 22 June 2022 after finding her with a small amount of cannabis in a UK-registered car in Port St Mary.[1] Officers spotted her in the passenger seat of a white Ford Fiesta at about 12:40 BST, and she admitted to carrying about five pounds worth of cannabis.[1] Isle of Man Today reported that the cannabis was a small amount of resin, about one gram, which she handed over voluntarily.[2]

Suspicious that she was concealing more drugs, police took her to Noble’s Hospital, where the cocaine and heroin were recovered in two golf ball-sized packages.[1] The packages held 20.1 grams of cocaine, which police valued at £2,010, and 7.7 grams of heroin, valued at between £962.50 and £1,925, according to Manx Radio.[3]

Her defence advocate said the inevitable prison sentence would be a “rude awakening”, while the deemster said the concealment gave the crime an element of sophistication.[1] Isle of Man police said the sentence sent a clear message that police and courts would deal robustly with drug dealing and importation.[3]