MAGISTRATE Hazel Octave-Hamilton yesterday sentenced Patrick Coates to three years imprisonment for possession of cannabis (marijuana).

The prisoner pleaded guilty, admitting that, last January 28, he had 32 grammes of the narcotic.

Police Sergeant Shellon Daniels, prosecuting, said Coates was previously convicted and this would have been his last month in prison.

But, that day, after helping to clean the cemetery, when he returned to the prison, he was searched and found with the prohibited substance in his buttocks.

Coates told the Court that, while he was in the burial ground, another man gave an officer the marijuana and the latter ordered him to take it into the jail.