A 47-year-old woman was jailed for 18 months yesterday for her part in a "highly organised and premeditated" smuggling operation that sought to bring about 600,000 cigarettes into the UK illegally.

Susan Johnson was stopped with her brother, Michael, Christina Hall and Darren Wallace at East Midlands Airport, in March, following a trip to the Canary Islands.

The group, from the North-East, were discovered to have more than 165,000 cigarettes stuffed in their luggage with an excise value of nearly £27,350.

All four admitted smuggling charges before magistrates in Coalville, Leicestershire, on March 25.

Yesterday, during sentencing of the Johnsons and Hall, at Leicester Crown Court, it emerged that Susan Johnson had been stopped 13 times since 2001 for attempting to bring contraband cigarettes into the UK through airports.

On each occasion, she refused to reveal who she was working for - but customs officers calculated that, added together, the offences amounted to an estimated 600,000 cigarettes, worth about £57,000 in excise.

Judge Michael Stokes told the mother-of-two from Shaftoe Court, Newcastle: "You and your companions were seeking to avoid some £27,000 in excise duty.

"On your other smuggling attempts, you would have obtained or defrauded or evaded some £30,000 worth of excise duty.

"Given the amount that you would have been avoiding had you succeeded, the court has no option but to impose a custodial sentence."

Michael Johnson, 45, of Mary Agnes Street, Cox Lodge, Newcastle, was given a four-month jail sentence, suspended for 12 months, while Hall, 32, of Royal Crescent, Fenham, was given 90 hours of community punishment and a two-year community rehabilitation order.

Judge Stokes accepted that sending Hall to jail would be "destructive" for her two young children, while Michael Johnson was spared custody because of his ongoing treatment for psychiatric problems, and because he was the sole carer of he and his sister's elderly parents.

Wallace, 37, of Beal Green, Kenton Bar, Newcastle, was not in court due to ill-health.

John Powell, of HM Customs and Excise, said after the case: ''These people represented an organised criminal organisation. I think the sentence given to Susan Johnson indicates the severity with which the courts view this kind of criminal activity."