A YOUTH worker at the Prince’s Trust has been jailed for supplying her boyfriend with drugs in prison.

Emma Fox was told that the nine-month sentence was a tragedy as she had now lost her job.

The 30-year-old passed cannabis to her boyfriend as they embraced in the visiting hall at Swalesdie Prison in Sheppey. But the packet fell to the floor and she was arrested.

Maidstone Crown Court heard that the incident was caught on CCTV cameras. Fox’s boyfriend could be seen prodding and feeling her waistband.

Danny Moore, prosecuting, said at an earlier trial that the prisoner took the cannabis from her waist and transferred it into his sleeve.

"There was an embrace between them," said Mr Moore. "As he takes his arms away, unfortunately for him and the defendant, the article drops from his sleeve onto the floor."

The boyfriend claimed that he already had the drug on him and it dropped as Fox was about to leave.

Fox, of Sandown Road, Watford, denied supply drugs but was convicted by the jury.

Hugh McKay, defending, on Friday passed a letter to Mr Recorder Martin Griffith from a girl who was given help by Fox at the Prince’s Trust.

"That part of her life has gone because of this case," said Recorder Griffith. "It is a tragedy."

Mr McKay said Fox was no longer seeing her boyfriend. "He has been a dark influence on her life," he said.

The lawyer submitted that Fox should be given a suspended sentence.

Recorder Griffith told Fox: "It is a great tragedy that you appear before this court, having succumbed to what I am sure must have been enormous pressure from your ex-partner to go against all you believed in and have striven for in your work with young people.

"As a result of agreeing to do that you not only put yourself in jeopardy of an inevitable custodial sentence, you have lost your job. You have lost what you were clearly equipped to do."

The judge said she was of impeccable character but had thrown everything away for the sake of what was "a few puffs of cannabis".

He added: "I am going to reduce the sentence dramatically and keep it as short as I can."