BRITISH citizen, Jamaican born Sophia Maria Hendricks was yesterday remanded to prison on a drug trafficking charge.
She pleaded guilty, before Magistrate Hazel Octave-Hamilton, to attempting to export one kilogramme 11 grammes of cocaine, on February 15, at Cheddi Jagan International Airport.
Attorney-at-law Mr. Adrian Thompson told the Court that Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU) officers advised the defendant to admit committing the offence and she would get a three months prison sentence.
But CANU Prosecutor Oswald Massiah said he was unaware of such advice. He said Hendricks is a Jamaican national who migrated to England and travelled to Guyana on February 7, since when she was staying at Aracari Resort on West Bank Demerara.
Massiah said, the day she was nabbed, she was travelling back to England when a CANU officer noticed her nervousness and invited her for a search. However, before the searching commenced, Hendricks admitted that she had cocaine in her hair piece.
The Prosecutor said it was weighed and a test confirmed it was cocaine.
After the Massiah narration, Hendricks indicated that she does not agree with it and would like to change her plea to not guilty.
The magistrate read over the charge and the defendant did make the change and was refused bail.
The case was transferred to Providence Court, also on East Bank Demerara, for February 26.
Nola Chapman (no address given) was also refused bail in the same Court on a similar charge.
She denied that, on February 15, too, at Aracari Resort, she handled one kilogramme 11grammes of cocaine by stitching it to Hendricks’ hairpiece.
Chapman, who claimed to have two small children, had her case transferred to Vreed-en-Hoop Court, Wes Coast Demerara, for March 3.