An Edgware single mother-of-three caught smuggling £47,000 worth of Jamaican herbal cannabis at Gatwick Airport was jailed for nine months yesterday.
Allie Trail, 33, of Briar Walk pleaded guilty to unlawfully importing 16.4 kilos of the drug on a Montego Bay flight on October 6, last year.
Prosecutor Miss Shanaz Ahmed told Croydon Crown Court the drugs were loaded into the defendant’s suitcase after she checked-in at the Jamaican airport.
“On CCTV it could be seen she was then holding a much heavier suitcase, which was intercepted and as she went through the green channel at Gatwick (pictured) she was stopped.
“Her tag was on the luggage and it was searched and the drugs found.”
Trail, who has sons aged fifteen and twenty months and a three-year old daughter, had set off on the £515 return trip on September 21.
She told a probation officer preparing a pre-sentence report she was hoodwinked by a Jamaican man known only as ‘Lee’ and did not know she was smuggling drugs.
“She was taken advantage of by her association with Lee, but she does admit there were circumstances that should have alerted her,” said Mr. B. Patel, defending.
“Lee was a forceful character and she was not likely to profit in direct terms from what happened.”
Judge John Anderson told Trail, who brought her two youngest children to court: “I have grave doubts as to the explanation you gave.
“Before leaving to return to this country you knew what you were doing, you knew what you were carrying. This was a knowing disobedience of the laws of this country.”
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