By John Connell

Last updated at 12:49, Saturday, 04 August 2012

A student who concealed four wraps of crack cocaine in her mouth has been spared jail.

Angel Paris Jordan

Angel Paris Jordan, 27, had been buying drugs outside a supermarket when she was caught by a plain clothes policeman.

She previously made headlines for becoming the youngest person in Britain to have a sex change.

Jordan, of Warwick Road, Carlisle, whose story has been told in national newspapers and on TV, appeared pale and anxious in court.

She fanned herself with a leaflet throughout the proceedings and the chairman of the bench at Carlisle Magistrates’ Court asked if she was about to faint or needed to sit down.

Justices heard that she had been spotted by a plain clothes policeman outside Morrisons, on Kingstown Road in the city, on May 2 where she had met with a man on a bicycle.

Pam Ward, prosecuting, said the officer had noticed her get out of a taxi and walk down the side of a building away from the entrance with the man.

Following them on foot, the police officer then saw the man pass something to Jordan in a closed fist which she then put in her mouth.

Ms Ward said: “He managed to retrieve what she had in her mouth – four bags of a rock-like substance which has been identified as crack cocaine.”

Mike Reay, defending, said she had pleaded guilty at the first opportunity and had been co-operative in interview.

He added: “It’s her first time in court and not an experience that she wants to repeat.

“The reason for offending has deep roots and she has a long history of ill health, physical and mental.

“The roots lie in her early childhood. I don’t want to go into detail because of the sensitivity of that history but it has links to her drug abuse.

“She is the exploited not the exploiter.”

The chairman of the bench ordered Jordan to pay a £110 fine, a victim surcharge of £15 and costs of £85.

A second charge of obstructing or resisting a constable in the execution of duty was withdrawn.

The court heard that she was now enrolled on an applied psychology course at the University of Cumbria.

Speaking after the case, Jordan said she did not consider herself strictly a transsexual but had been born intersex and classed herself as an hermaphrodite.

First published at 10:49, Saturday, 04 August 2012
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk