A MAN was jailed yesterday for attempting to pass drugs to his common-law-wife in prison.

Stefan Edmund, 35, was told he was to be searched after using the lavatory while visiting his former partner in Low Newton Prison, a women's jail on the outskirts of Durham, the city's Crown Court was told.

He attempted to move his clenched fist from his pocket to his mouth, but prison officers stepped in and found a 2.95 gram cling film wrap of cannabis from his hand.

Edmund said he bought the drug, for his own use, for £10 in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, that morning before travelling to Durham with his two small children to visit his partner.

Edmund said he had forgotten he had the drug, and denied a charge of possession of cannabis resin with intent to supply the class B drug.

But after a one-day trial, a jury took only 40 minutes to return a guilty verdict.

Tom Storey, defending, said Edmund's partner at the time was serving a sentence for a drug offence when he visited her last October, and he tried to pass the cannabis to her "out of a misguided sense of loyalty".

Mr Storey said Edmund has recently left the woman, moving out of the home they shared in Greenfields Avenue, Harrogate, and was living in the Masham area of North Yorkshire.

The court was told he has previous convictions for drug possession and cultivation, but none for attempting to supply.