A woman with a drug addiction had her jail term cut by three months by a criminal appeals court.

The woman, whose name cannot by published by court order, had been jailed for a year and fined €2,000 for being in possession of methadone in circumstances denoting it was not for personal use, attempting to smuggle drugs in to prison and trafficking in heroin in 2012.

Mr Justice David Scicluna, sitting in the Court of Criminal Appeals, noted the woman had filed a guilty plea. Those who chose to do this had to assume responsibility and subject themselves to the punishment meted out. The judgment handed down by the Magistrates’ Court had fallen within the parameters of the law and took into consideration the woman’s early guilty plea, the judge ruled.

But the magistrates court, in noting that an early admission had been made, failed to say whether the reduction in punishment, which accompanies an early admission, was by one degree or two. This merited a change in punishment, he said and reduced the jail term.

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