A DRUG addict and former prostitute has been jailed for 18 months after a judge said she had ran out of chances.

The Recorder of Middlesbrough, Judge Simon Bourne-Arton said Donna Carter had made excuses and “ducked out of any obligations she had”.

Carter, 32, had previously been given a 15 month jail sentence, suspended for two years, by Judge Simon Bourne-Arton after supplying heroin to an undercover police officer on April 10 last year.

Then on February 28 this year she was with her boyfriend at a house in Thornaby when it was searched for drugs by police.

He was found with four wraps of heroin which Carter admitted she had bought and given to him in order that she did not use it all at once.

After admitting possession of a class A drug before Judge Bourne-Arton at Teesside Crown Court he deferred sentence on her for three months to see if she could engage with the probation service and attend drug rehabilitation meetings.

But Nigel Soppitt, representing the probation service, said she had failed to respond to the order she was given.

He said: “[They] are having to go and find this lady to try and help her. It is wholly unsatisfactory.”

Andrew Turton, mitigating, said Carter, of Hartington Road, Stockton, led a chaotic lifestyle.

He said: “All these issues continue to haunt her and she has been unable to grasp the lifeline she was given.”

The barrister said she needed a “short, sharp shock” and suggested any sentence imposed be kept as short as possible.

Judge Bourne-Arton said she had made a lifestyle choice to carry on using drugs.

He said: “I have given you two chances and made it perfectly plain what would happen if you commit any further offence.”

He activated the suspended sentence on her and jailed her for a total of 18 months.