No jail for mum who used baby to smuggle drugs

Published on Friday 21 November 2008 08:55

A MOTHER who smuggled drugs into Saughton Prison in her baby's hood has escaped jail.

Linda Restorick, 37, was told by Sheriff Frank Crowe at Edinburgh Sheriff Court that she only avoided a jail term because of her family responsibilities.

Instead, he imposed a restriction of liberty order, confining her to her home between 8pm and 7am for six months.

Restorick, of Duddingston Mills, Edinburgh, had pleaded guilty previously to being concerned in the supply of herbal cannabis and heroin on March 24 this year at Saughton Prison.

During visiting time that day officers became convinced there was something hidden in the hood of a baby, sitting on an inmate's knee.

When they approached the man, he pulled the child closer to him and refused to hand the baby over. When eventually he did so, the officers found two packets of drugs in the hood.

Fiscal Depute Malcolm Stewart said Restorick was the baby's mother and the inmate had been her partner at the time.

She admitted to the police that she had put the drugs into the baby's hood.

When asked where she had got the drugs, she replied: "No comment. I got them from a laddie in a hoodie. I don't know his name. I didn't pay for them. I am not telling you anything else".

The Fiscal said the street value of the heroin was about 130, but in prison it would be worth 390. The cannabis had a street value of 14, but 40 in prison.