Hull woman jailed for three years for smuggling drugs into Egypt, family says

Shop worker Laura Plummer, 33, from Hull, was arrested after she was found to be carrying 290 tramadol tablets in her suitcase, a painkiller which is legal in the UK but which is banned in Egypt.

Ms Plummer's family, who have described her as "naive", said she was taking the tablets for her Egyptian partner Omar Caboo, who suffers from severe back pain.

According to a Facebook group set up by her family, she appeared in court in Egypt on Boxing Day and was jailed for three years.

The family said her lawyers lodged an immediate appeal.

Ms Plummer appeared in court on Christmas Day but the judge adjourned the case for a day because of her condition, according to her sister, Rachel.

Their mother Roberta Sinclair travelled to Egypt for the hearings.

The Plummer family has previously said Ms Plummer had no idea that what she doing was illegal and was just "daft".

They said she did not try to hide the medicine, which she had been given by a friend, and she thought it was a joke when she was pulled over by officials after arriving for a holiday with her partner.

Mrs Sinclair said her daughter was being held in terrible conditions in a communal cell with no beds, sharing with up to 25 other women.

Ms Plummer is being held in the Red Sea resort of Hurghada, where she was arrested at the airport on October 9.

Her family had been told that she could face up to 25 years in jail, with one lawyer even mentioning the death penalty.

Rachel Plummer said her mother was "devastated" by the sentence.

She said the family were trying to find out more details about what happened in the courtroom on Tuesday.

She said: "My mum's obviously devastated. She's out there by herself."

She added that she did not know whether the appeal would be heard on Tuesday.

She said: "We're just hoping. Even half of that would be better. Anything less than three years.

"She doesn't deserve that."

Ms Plummer's local MP Karl Turner said the ruling had come as a devastating blow to her family but he was hopeful that good sense would eventually prevail.

He said her case had been raised with the Egyptian authorities by Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and the Foreign Office Minister Alistair Burt.

"I am hopeful that good sense will eventually prevail," he told BBC Radio 4's The World At One.

"This is a damning indictment actually of the Egyptian authorities in the sense that good sense and fairness certainly hasn't prevailed in this case.

"This is a decent woman who has made a terrible mistake who shouldn't be incarcerated in any prison, never mind an Egyptian prison."