A mother jailed for a year after imprisoning her junkie daughter in her bedroom to stop her getting drugs has failed in her bid to be freed.

Kent County Council worker, Julia Saker 50, of Malvern Road, Temple Ewell, Dover, along with a family friend, bound her crack and heroin-addicted 18-year-old daughter, Tabitha, with gaffer tape and belts as she struggled to leave to get to her drug supplier.

Saker then left her daughter alone with the family friend, who administered a beating which left the girl bruised around the face and neck.

However the teenager had managed to phone 999 before being immobilised, and the incident was recorded by the police who later arrested her mother and the man who beat her.

Saker, who worked as an administrator for Kent County Council, was jailed for 12 months at Maidstone Crown Court on January 13 this year, after pleading guilty to false imprisonment.

Today, Patrick Lawrence QC, on her behalf, asked London's Criminal Appeal Court, to overturn that sentence.

The barrister argued she had only acted as any loving mother would have done and asked the court to replace her jail term with a non-custodial sentence.

He said Saker had "reached the end of her tether" after finding that all of her own and her mother's jewellery had been stolen and pawned by her daughter and that £1,000 cash had also been taken to pay for drugs.

"The acts of false imprisonment were undeniably done out of concern for the protection of her daughter.

"That is why the public would be unable to say in this case that this lady belonged in prison," Mr Lawrence concluded."

Mr Justice Cooke, who was sitting with two other judges, expressed sympathy for Saker, saying: "We understand that she was doing her best on a tremendously difficult situation."

But he added: "She was also there supporting violence to bully or scare her child into not using drugs."

Mr Justice Cooke dismissed the sentence, saying the judges couldn't say the judge was wrong in concluding that only a sentence of immediate imprisonment was justified.

Outside court, Mr Lawrence said that Saker's daughter has now kicked drugs, having undergone a methadone programme.