A MOTHER who took her two children on a drugs deal was today locked up for three-and-a-half years.

Stacey Sherwood was told by a Teesside Crown Court judge: "That's not an example you should be setting."

The youngsters - aged two and nine - were in the back of a Mini when she sold heroin from the driver's seat.

The supermarket car park exchange was seen by police who happened to be there to "use the facilities".

Officers swooped and caught a man dropping the packages and 35-year-old Sherwood with cash on her lap.

She denied taking part in a transaction, but was found guilty of supplying Class A drugs after a trial.

The court heard that Sherwood had served a three-year sentence from 2010 for an identical offence

Robert Mochrie, mitigating, said she was a heroin addict, and had been taking it during her trial in February.

"This was a woman who must have been supplying to assist her own deeply-entrenched habit," Mr Mochrie said.

Recorder Edward Bindloss said he accepted the deal at Asda in Skelton, east Cleveland, was a one-off.

When police searched her home in the town's Holmbeck Road, they found no other drugs paraphernalia.

"The aggravating features are your previous convictions, and the presence of your children," the judge said.

"I accept any sentence of imprisonment is going to have an effect on you and your children, and your relationship with them.

"A man who was a user of heroin came up to your car after it had been stationary for a few minutes.

"He passed you some money and you passed him three packets of heroin worth £25 each.

"By chance, some police officers had stopped in that car park, because one wanted to use the facilities.

"Your home was searched and there was no dealer list found or any evidence on your mobile phone.

"I am satisfied on the evidence I heard during the trial that this was an isolated incident."