Mother jailed for sending heroin in birthday card to son at Stoke Heath

Jeanette Debuse addressed the card – containing quantities of crack cocaine and heroin – to her son at the Stoke Heath Young Offenders Institution, near Market Drayton.

At Shrewsbury Crown Court yesterday Judge Peter Barrie said that drugs inside prisons caused difficulties with inmates and disciplinary problems.

He said it was so serious that he had impose a consecutive sentence on Debuse who is already serving three years for an offence of attempted robbery.

At court yesterday Debuse, 54, of Newman Way, Rednal, near Birmingham, admitted conspiring to convey the drugs into the prison.

The court heard that her son was serving a sentence at Stoke Heath at the time that Debuse sent the card on June 5 last year.

Mr Kevin Jones, prosecuting, said that staff spotted the suspicious package having noticed a raised area on the envelope.

He said it was examined and two wraps of drugs – 149 milligrams of crack cocaine and 90 milligrams of heroin sealed in paper and plastic – were discovered.

Mr Jones said that fingerprints were found and efforts were made to compare handwriting but were initially inconclusive.

Staff checked monitored phone calls which indicated that her son had been waiting for a delivery.

It was from further mail sent by Debuse and fingerprints taken when she was later arrested for the attempted robbery, that it was confirmed that she had sent the card.

Mr Tariq Rashid, for Debuse, said his client regretted her actions but her decision had been clouded by concerns about her son's well-being while at the young offenders institution.