A woman who tried to smuggle cash off the island in a pram has been handed a suspended sentence.

Georgina Jane Anita Powell was arrested on July 3 at the Sea Terminal when police found the hidden £9,940 after a sniffer dog raised suspicions.

After she pleaded guilty to attempting to remove criminal property from the island, Deemster Graeme Cook sentenced her to six months in custody, suspended for 12 months.

She was also made the subject of a 12-month suspended sentence supervision order.

Prosecuting advocate Hazel Carroon told the court that officers were at the Sea Terminal as part of ‘Operation Strongbox’.

Powell, who is 27 and lives at Mayfield Gardens in Neston, Wirral, was checking in to board the 3pm ferry to Liverpool with another woman.

A sniffer dog indicated that there was something hidden in a pram and the two women were detained for a search.

There were two prams and one was found to contain £9,940 while the other had £2,000 in it.

When interviewed, Powell said she had been thinking about visiting the island on June 26 in order to buy a seven-seat vehicle.

On June 29, she posted on Snapchat that she was coming to the island.

She said that she was then contacted by someone called ‘Jay’ asking for her phone number.

‘Jay’ then called her and asked her if she could bring back some money from the island, which he said was owed to him.

He told her that it was rent owed from an ex-partner and from a car sale.

Powell said she had asked the other woman to come with her but had not told her about the cash to be brought back.

She said that the £2,000 was her own, which she had intended to buy a car with.

When they arrived on the island, on July 1, they stayed at a hotel in Douglas.

Powell said that she had then been called by ‘Jay’ again, saying that a man would meet her with the cash.

She met the man who gave her a packet of cash, which she put in one of the prams.

Powell said she then put her own £2,000 in her friend’s pram without her knowledge, to ‘keep it separate’.

She said that she had invited the woman to come with her as she wanted her there to look after her child if anything went wrong.

A probation report said that Powell was a mother of four, who was currently pregnant, and had previously been in an abusive relationship, which had caused her to suffer mental health issues.

The report said that Isle of Man probation services were liaising with Cheshire probation services over Powell being supervised in the UK.

Powell told probation that she had significant debts and had been offered £200 to come to the island, as well as £500 for her accommodation.

She said she had believed it would be ‘easy money’.

Defence advocate Peter Taylor said that his client had spent five days in custody and was vulnerable to exploitation, from which she needed assistance to move away.

Deemster Cook told Powell: ‘You came to the island for the purpose of removing criminal property. It is only because of your children I am not imposing immediate custody.

‘However, I don’t want the public to think that if they’re pregnant, or have children, they can come over here and end up with a suspended sentence.’

The deemster said he was being ‘very lenient’ and that such cases would be looked at on a case-by-case basis.