A DRUG-dealing mother was spared jail yesterday after the judge said that she herself was a victim of the drugs world.

Carrie Dunn, 23, was caught with 11 wraps of heroin hidden in her underwear when police stopped a van in which she was a passenger, and her mobile phone showed she had been dealing in drugs, said Sue Jacobs, prosecuting.

There were 14 text messages over a week in April asking for drugs and 12 messages in which she appeared to agree to supply them, Teesside Crown Court was told.

Earlier, police had raided her home in Hartlepool and found another heroin wrap which she said she would have returned to a former boyfriend.

Christine Egerton, mitigating, said mother-of-two Dunn had no previous convictions for drugs.

The judge, Recorder Brian Cox QC, told Dunn it was clear from reports that she had had a difficult life, and had made efforts to tackle her drugs problem.

The judge said: "It seems to me this is a case where I treat you as really a victim of the drug that you were using and selling at the time."

Dunn, formerly of Smith Place, Hartlepool, but now of Acclom Street, Hartlepool, was given an 18 months supervision order after she pleaded guilty to two offences of possession of Class A drug heroin with intent to supply on March 16 and April 26.