CAUGHT at Gatwick Airport with $20,000 of cannabis in her suitcase, 24-year-old Nicola Beattie claimed that someone must have put it there without her knowledge.

But, at Croydon Crown Court last Friday, a jury convicted her of smuggling and she was jailed for two years.

Beattie, of Gisburn Road, Preston, landed back in the UK on February 23 after a week in Jamaica. She had her two-year-old son with her.

Customs officers said at her trial that she was stopped in the Nothing to Declare green channel and her luggage searched.

About 6.5kg of the drug were discovered among here clothes and she was arrested.

In evidence Beattie said she had bought her own airline tickets to go on a holiday. The only explanation for the drugs being in the case was that another person must have been responsible.

"I didn't notice that I was carrying any more weight," she said.

Beattie denied that there had been any arrangement with anyone else offering her a holiday in return for bringing in the cannabis. She had made her own plans and had travelled to London by train, and then a friend had driven her to Gatwick.

Judge David Ellis told her: "Only a custodial sentence is justified, because of the social misery that illicit drugs can cause when sold on the streets of this country.

"I am satisfied that you were a courier, although you did not stand to make a significant gain, perhaps just a free holiday and spending money."

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