Woman (25) jailed for smuggling phone 'inside her body' into Mountjoy
A 25-year-old woman has been jailed for nine months for smuggling a mobile phone "internally" into Mountjoy Prison.
Kirsty Doyle of East Wall, Dublin, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to bringing a prohibited item into the prison on September 9, 2013.
The court heard that Doyle was addicted to heroin and crack cocaine at the time and agreed to smuggle the phone into prison in exchange for €500.
She refused to tell gardaí who had asked her to make the delivery and for whom the phone was destined.
Garda Peter Twomey told Gerardine Small, prosecuting, that when Doyle walked into the prison screening area the metal detector device was activated.
Prison officers took her aside but she initially denied having anything on her that may have set off the detector.
However soon after she admitted that she had a package and handed over a small mobile phone wrapped in a condom which she removed from her underwear.
Doyle told gardaí she knew it was wrong but said she was homeless at the time and needed the money.
Custodial
Doyle has 29 previous minor convictions for shoplifting, criminal damage, public order offences and common assault.
Judge Martin Nolan took into account Doyle's guilty plea and co-operation but said he felt a custodial sentence was warranted and imposed a term of nine months.
Enda Kilroy, defending, said Doyle wouldn't say who she was bringing the phone to out of fear. Doyle told gardaí on arrest that she had been on drugs and "quite strung out" when three men asked her to deliver the package inside her own body.
She said she only accepted the job because she was on drugs.
Counsel said she had started taking drugs under the influence of a boyfriend who was serving a prison sentence at the time. "She was a cog in the machine, a pawn in the game, and will not name the people involved due to fear," said Mr Kilroy. He said his client underwent drug treatment and is now clean and hoping to turn her life around and complete a Fetac qualification.
The court heard that Doyle was witness to a shooting six years ago, after which her mother and siblings moved to Cork and she stayed in Dublin.
In 2009, her brother died of an overdose while her father died from throat cancer two weeks later.
She began to take drugs under the influence of a boyfriend and her addiction spiralled after she suffered a miscarriage. The court heard Doyle still owes a debt of €3,000 from her drug addiction.