A young air hostess who turned to crime after her life fell apart was today jailed for two years for storing drugs for a big-time dealer.

Rebecca Allan had left school with good exam results and worked as a junior manager with a train company before landing her dream job with British Airways.

The 22-year-old had also set up home with her boyfriend on the upmarket housing estate of Ingleby Barwick, near Stockton.

But she was forced to leave her London-based job through ill health after her relationship came to an end, and moved back to her home town of Darlington.

A court heard how she met former school pals and because she was out of work agreed to stash Ecstasy tablets for one of them - in return for a few pills for herself.

Allan was caught when police pulled her over in her Rover convertible for a routine stop and found 23 tablets in her handbag.

Prosecutor Paul Cleasby said officers searched her house in Fairfield Street and found a further 798 pills hidden in bags under Allan's bed.

Allan admitted possessing a Class A drug with intent to supply and possessing a Class A drug on June 8, and possessing a Class A drug with intent to supply between January 1 and June 8, last year.

She told police she had stored Ecstasy tablets for the same man - who she refused to name after being threatened - on one other occasion before being stopped on June 8.

Mr Cleasby said Allan told police she had received 1,000 pills and was told to split them into bags of 100, but was allowed 30 for herself in payment for storing them.

"Police asked why she had been chosen and she said it was because she was daft enough to do it and unlikely to arouse anyone's suspicion," added Mr Cleasby. "She said if she was daft enough to do it, she would have to take the consequences."

Dan Cordey, defending, said: "She was nave enough and stupid enough to allow herself to be used."

Mr Cordey described Allan as "an articulate, intelligent young woman who conducted her life in an exemplary manner" before being coerced into storing the drugs.

He said she was threatened not to identify the dealer - who received stashes of 20,000 at a time from Liverpool - and had her car vandalised then stolen and burnt out after being arrested.

Judge Guy Whitburn, QC, said he had a responsibility to jail Allan but said it was his duty to make the sentence as short as possible because of her "impeccable" background.

"You are the ideal cloak of respectability for a drug dealer who was not a small-scale drug dealer but a large-scale drug dealer," he said. "He needed people like you to store those drugs because it is rare indeed that any large-scale dealer is either caught with drugs or money on him or her."