A pregnant Oamaru mother will have her baby in jail, after being sentenced to two and a-half years' jail on drug-related charges yesterday.
Jasmine Jenner (23) was warned yesterday by Judge Robert Wolff that unless she sought help to address her methamphetamine problem, she would not be able to care for her children in the future.
Jenner was in the Oamaru District Court for sentence on 13 charges: six of procuring the class A drug methamphetamine, one of attempting to procure it, one of supplying the drug and five of offering to supply it to several people in Oamaru.
She is charged with committing the offences on various dates between January 16 and October 16.
Apart from one charge each of supplying and offering to supply between January 16 and October 14, the offending was all said to have taken place from January to March.
Jenner is the mother of a 7-month-old child and was 5 months pregnant.
Counsel David More said Jenner had only four clients during her offending.
Crown counsel Andrew McRae said the extent of harm and premeditation were aggravating factors and submitted a sentence of three years' imprisonment was appropriate.
Jenner had previous convictions of procuring LSD and methamphetamine in 2014.
While Jenner was a user, Mr More said she was able to control it when she had her first child and when she discovered she was pregnant again.
Her most recent drug-screening tests were clear.
A child is allowed in prison with its mother up to the age of 2 and Mr More said it would be beneficial that the child was close to its mother when it was born and that Jenner was released before the child's second birthday.
A sentence of two and a-half years' imprisonment would ensure that, he submitted.
Judge Wolff said Jenner deserved credit for her personal circumstances and her early guilty plea.
Her offending was more serious than that of Kenny Hung Fung, who was sentenced to two years' and two months imprisonment before her in court yesterday, and her sentence needed to reflect that, Judge Wolff said.
She was sentenced to two years and six months' imprisonment.
Her outstanding fines of $3025 were remitted
