A 33-year-old woman will be spending the next few weeks on remand after attempting to smuggle cannabis into the Georgetown Magistrates’ Court (GMC) lockup for an inmate.
Sarah Chance of Kaneville, East Bank Demerara, a mother of three, made her appearance before Principal Magistrate Faith McGusty on Wednesday, January 23, 2019, for introducing narcotics at the court lockup.

The charge read that, on January 21, 2019, at the GMC, she ‘introduced’ 23 grammes of cannabis into the court lockup.
“

I tried to help out somebody by dropping a pair of boots… I was set up” the unrepresented woman told the court in her defence.

The woman told the magistrate that, a few months earlier, she was before the court and was in the police outpost where she lent an inmate her phone to make a call. The inmate and she began conversing and that led to further communication, via cellphone, between herself and the inmate while the latter was in prison.

Chance said that the inmate called her one day and asked her to meet with his friend in Georgetown to collect $10,000 and purchase a jersey and some other items for him.
However, while in Georgetown, the inmate called her back and asked her to take a taxi and venture into Albouystown to pick up a pair of boots for him so that he could attend his trial hearing.

Chance stressed that she picked up the boots and took it to the court without checking the item and did not have knowledge that drugs were inside.

Prosecutor Annalisa Brummel argued that Chance and the inmate were known to each other for over three months and he had asked Chance to deliver the boots to him at the court with the illicit substance inside.

Brummel noted that while Chance was at the court and told by the officers that the boots had to be searched, she began acting in a suspicious manner. The footwear was searched and the cannabis was found compressed into the sole of the boots.

The magistrate ruled in favour of the prosecution’s objection and remanded the mother of three to prison until February 19, 2019.