A MOTHER who was spared jail after admitting having sex with a 14-yearold boy is to be locked up for a year after a judge increased her “unduly lenient” sentence.

Mother-of-two Sharon Edwards, 40, of Elton Grove, Stockton, will have to surrender to custody at 1pm today, when she will start her jail sentence.

She had been given a suspended sentence at Teesside Crown Court last year, but the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, quashed that yesterday on appeal.

London’s Criminal Appeal Court heard that she started the brief affair with the boy after her marriage hit the rocks in 2007, but the affair was discovered after her husband recorded conversations they were having online.

The pair also exchanged up to 50 text messages a day, some of which were sexually explicit.

On one occasion, when the two were together, the teenager helped himself to some of her cocaine, Lord Judge said.

She subsequently offered to supply him.

After Edwards admitted four counts of sexual activity with a child and one of offering to supply cocaine in May last year, Teesside Recorder, Judge Peter Fox, sentenced her to 12 months in prison, suspended for two years.

The sentence was criticised by the boy’s mother.

Yesterday, Lord Judge said Judge Fox had been wrong.

Referring to a transcript of text messages between the pair, he said: “It is perfectly obvious that it cannot be said that it was just the boy who was making advances to the offender.

“We reject the conclusion that this boy seduced the offender, whether for sexual purposes, or in order to gain access to cocaine.

“He had never touched any drug before he met her; she undoubtedly had.

“He was a boy of 14, a virgin; she was sexually experienced. She is not unintelligent or simple.

“But for the intervention of her husband, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the offender’s offer to supply cocaine was genuine and, if he had asked for it, she would have found some for him.”

But Edward’s barrister, Deborah Sherwin, said the mother had found the whole thing “extremely hard to cope with”.

She said: “She was sad, lonely, drinking too much and thought this relationship was something more than it was. She did not apply common sense to the difference in age.”

Lord Judge agreed Edwards had made efforts to put the past behind her, but said: “These offences are of a very serious culpability, that cannot be denied. We agree that young boys, as well as young girls, are vulnerable.

Parliament has not sought to distinguish between them in the legislation and neither should we.”