A bartender who claimed she was only trying to accumulate funds to pay for a nursing course when she attempted to smuggle four-and-a-half pounds of ganja to Barbados in her brassiere and vagina, was, on Monday, sentenced to one year in prison.

Twenty-two-year-old Deandra Reid of Lyndhurst Road in Kingston was also slapped with fines totalling $71,600 after she pleaded guilty to the drug charges. If the fines are not paid, she will spend an additional six months in prison.

The sentence was handed down by Senior Resident Magistrate Judith Pusey when Reid appeared in the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate’s Court after pleading guilty last Friday.

Before she was sentenced, Reid was questioned about her reason for attempting to export drugs. In response, she told the magistrate: “I was trying to help myself go to nursing school.”

She was subsequently sentenced to serve a one-year mandatory sentence in prison and ordered to pay $1,600 for possession of ganja or serve six months; $10,000 or six months for dealing in ganja; and $60,000 or six months for taking steps to export ganja.

Reid was held at Norman Manley International Airport on September 24 after she checked in to board a flight to Barbados.

During a security check, she was questioned and searched and a parcel of ganja was found hidden in each cup of her brassiere.

Reid then voluntarily removed a parcel from her groin area and one from her vagina, after which she was arrested and charged.