A Douglas woman has been jailed in Jersey for seven years after importing more than £200,000 worth of drugs to the Channel island.

Tara-Lei Ashlyn Cowell and Liverpudlian Michael Stephen Clohessy imported heroin and cocaine which could have fetched as much as £215,000 in street deals.

The Jersey Evening Post reported the duo were spotted walking around Howard Davis Park in St Helier on October 25, stopping near St Luke’s Church, close to where the drugs were later found buried in a shallow hole.

They were arrested in a pub the same day, in an investigation involving customs and police officers.

Clohessy and 35-year-old Cowell had arrived in Jersey the day before.

Cowell, of Empire Terrace, imported the drugs internally and delivered them to Clohessy, who acted as the ‘middle man’, passing them on to an unnamed dealer in the island, the Royal Court was told.

Both admitted charges of being concerned in the importation of the class A drugs at a previous court appearance. Cowell also admitted importing the class C drugs pregabalin and diazepam.

Advocate Julian Gollop, defending Cowell, said his client had been clear of heroin for 18 months but still owed drug dealers money for her previous historical drug habit.

He said: ‘It was £5,000. Interest was placed on that and she was told she now owed £20,000.’

The court heard she had been threatened and beaten by the dealers until she agreed to carry the drugs to Jersey – somewhere she had never been before.

‘She was fearful for her mother and two young sons,’ he said.