A WOMAN caught smuggling drugs into prison for her partner told officials: "I thought they'd cheer him up."

Shelene Brown wanted to help her burglar boyfriend cope behind bars and hid the sleeping tablets in her trousers.

Prison guards saw her looking nervous as she chatted with Christopher Hull in the visiting area on October 1.

Officers at Holme House Prison, Stockton, swooped when they saw Brown fidgeting about in her waistband for the pills.

The 33-year-old had bought the diazepam tablets a day before she visited the jail, Teesside Crown Court heard.

Brown, of Marlborough Street, Hartlepool, admitted a charge of conveying a prohibited article into prison.

She narrowly dodged jail herself yesterday (Thursday, January 29) after a judge heard she had recently made efforts to turn around her life.

Brown is tackling her heroin habit, has a stable home and is engaging well with a drugs worker, her lawyer told the court.

Martin Scarborough, mitigating, said Brown's partner was "struggling from withdrawal" and she tried to help him.

He asked the judge, Recorder Felicity Davies, to give the mother-of-four "one chance" with a suspended prison sentence.

The judge told Brown she had planned to lock her up after reading the case papers, but said: "I have just been persuaded."

Miss Recorder Davies added: "Those who take drugs into prison almost always receive an immediate custodial sentence.

"You took them into prison as a gift for your partner. You insisted you had not been asked to do so, or been pressured.

"You said it was to cheer him up. While I'm not sure that is entirely accurate, there is no evidence of you telling lies.

"They were not for onward supply . . . you did this on a whim. It was an incredibly stupid thing to do."

Brown was given a four-month prison sentence, suspended for a year, with 12 months of Probation Service supervision.

The judge told her: "You are very fortunate . . . any breach is likely to result in the court having no sympathy."