An East Finchley woman convicted of passing hard drugs to her prisoner boyfriend by hiding them in her bra during a visit had her sentence cut last week.

Jennifer Wiseman, 35, of Central Avenue, was jailed after quantities of heroin and crack cocaine fell out of her bra during a passionate kiss with boyfriend David Fredericks at The Mount prison, near Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire.

The packet of a small amount of the class A drugs fell out after Fredericks touched the top of her chest during a long kiss when she visited him in July last year.

A prison officer spotted the incident and told the original trial at St Albans Crown Court in January this year that Wiseman's actions suggested she was passing the drugs to her boyfriend.

The Criminal Appeal Court rejected an appeal against her conviction, but cut her prison sentence from six-and-a-half years to five years, on Friday last week. The appeal heard the jury in the original trial were read a statement from the prison officer who had died before the trial, and so could not have been cross-examined.

Wiseman said she had no intention of passing the drugs to her boyfriend and the amounts 632mg of crack cocaine and 391mg of heroin were too small to be supplied to others.

Mr Justice Goldring, sitting with Lord Justice May and Mr Justice Cross upheld the possession with intent to supply conviction, saying Wiseman deliberately went into prison with drugs when she did not have to.

He said she passed various drugs warnings on the way in and had not said the drugs where for her own use when initially questioned.

December 18, 2001 17:01