A YOUNG mother who used her one-year-old daughter as cover to smuggle a mobile phone into Limerick Prison. was before Limerick District Court.

Eighteen-year-old Catriona Casey of April Rise, Old Cork Road, was before judge O’Donnell relating to the offence where gardai were called to Limerick Prison on September 18 last.

Giving evidence, Inspector Seamus Ruane said that prison officers told Garda Farrell that a mobile phone was “hidden on the child’s person,” and the subsequent search of the related inmate found a mobile phone in his cell.

Inspector Ruane went on to say that the child was “passed to the inmate in question with the phone hidden in its clothes”.

The court also heard that the accused had 12 previous convictions, with the last dating back to April last year.

John Herbert, defending, stated that the accused brought the phone to the prison for her sister’s husband and it was to be used for nothing more than the inmate to stay in contact with his family, adding that it was “misadventure and nothing sinister”.

Judge O’Donnell noted that this was an “appalling incident” where the “disguise of a one-year-old child” was used to conceal a mobile phone.

However, giving credit for the early plea, judge O’Donnell convicted and sentenced the accused to four months in prison, but suspended it pending Ms Casey be on good behaviour for 12 months. She was also placed on her own bond of €100. The case was adjourned.