A MOTHER desperate for money who took her ten-year-old daughter on drug deals has been jailed for three years.

Emma Richardson looked stunned and left the dock in tears, and her friends fled from court sobbing, after the sentence was imposed.

Yvonne Taylor, mitigating, had earlier pleaded with Judge David Bryant to impose a suspended prison term on the 28-year-old.

But Judge Bryant told Richardson: "Anyone who chooses to engage in drug dealing goes to prison for a substantial period, and that's what will happen to you."

After the case, Detective Sergeant Jim Devine, from the Cleveland Police drug squad, welcomed the sentence, and vowed the fight against dealers would continue.

"It beggars belief that anyone could take their young child with them to carry out such offences," said Det Sgt Devine. "Getting her daughter involved is despicable."

Teesside Crown Court heard that Richardson was stopped by police in a car in Ormesby Road, Middlesbrough, on September 5 last year. In a search, officers discovered amphetamine, crack cocaine and heroin in the vehicle.

A search of her home, in the town's Palmer Street, uncovered two mobile telephones, a notebook with lists of names, some electronic scales, clingfilm used to wrap drugs and £120 in cash.

As police carried out the search, one of the phones rang and an officer picked it up.

But before he had a chance to speak, the caller said: "Now, J, I want some gear. Just one. I'll be at Marshall shops. How long?"

In interview, Richardson told detectives she had been addicted to amphetamine for five months, and sometimes used heroin, and sold drugs to help with her rent and to buy food for her daughter.

She admitted supplying crack cocaine on one occasion last June - which had been caught on CCTV - and for about three weeks before she was stopped and searched by police.

"She is extremely remorseful and ashamed of what she has done," said Miss Taylor. "She is extremely ashamed that her daughter was there.

"She saw it as a way forward, not wanting to go to a family member and seek any assistance from them.

"She also acknowledges the impact her actions would have had on the victims, further entrenching them in drugs misuse."