Naive young mum took huge gamble for 'life-changing' sum - but it didn't pay off
A drug mule caught in the UK with 28 kilos of cannabis in a "risky gamble" for a "life-changing" sum has been jailed.
Chelsea Blanton "took a gamble" in attempting to bring the drugs into the UK in exchange for $8,500 (£6,200). The American woman had travelled from Texas to Saudi Arabia to Malaysia before heading to Manchester via Heathrow, but she was stopped by Border Force officers at Manchester Airport on May 7 this year.
Officers found 15 vacuum-sealed packages of cannabis in her two suitcases, and Blanton was arrested. The 29-year-old woman later told a court she had been offered the "life-changing" amount of $8,500 to try to smuggle the cannabis, which had a wholesale value of around £80,000.
Jailing Blanton for 17 months at Manchester Crown Court, Judge Tom Gilbart said: "You took a gamble, it didn't pay off. You now have to pay the consequences."
The court heard Blanton made a "false claim" regarding her visit to the UK when she was arrested at the airport. She later admitted drug smuggling when confronted with the cannabis, reports Manchester Evening News.
The judge continued: "Speaking to the probation service, you confirmed you did this to make money. You took a risk, you said you would be paid $8,500. There is no suggestion of intimidation or coercion. There was a degree of naivety on your part."
The court heard she had no previous conviction in the United Kingdom, but had admitted to the probation service that she was imprisoned for assault in the United States.
Blanton expressed remorse, and said in mitigation that she had suffered trauma following the violent death of her father. She also said she had been the victim of domestic violence in the past, the judge continued.
He said: "I accept you had genuine personal, health and financial difficulties. You have a good work ethic and have worked two jobs to support your family. You have a 12-year-old child, he must pay the consequences for the decisions you have made. You described this opportunity as life changing, and I accept you would have received significant financial gain.'
Blanton, of no fixed abode, was jailed for 17 months, of which she will serve half in prison before she will be liable to deportation back to the United States. Judge Gilbart added: "Given you committed this crime having left your son with your mother, it can't be a proper or fair reason to step back from custody."
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Spectator
8 hours ago
- Spectator
The Daughter of Time was worth the wait
That it has taken its sweet time getting here cannot be denied, but, at last, it has happened. More than 70 years after the novel by Josephine Tey became an overnight sensation in 1951, a stage adaptation of The Daughter of Time has arrived in the West End. Voted the greatest crime novel of all time by the Crime Writers' Association back in 1990, The Daughter of Time is Tey's most unusual but brilliant detective story. It's her most unusual because its sees her Inspector Alan Grant – the central character in five of her detective stories – solving a crime from his hospital bed while recovering from a broken leg. And it's arguably her most brilliant because the crime he solves is one of British history's coldest and most high-profile cases – who murdered the Princes in the Tower in 1483. Yet while it's a brilliant book, because most of the action happens either inside Grant's head or in his hospital room, it has probably been judged undramatisable – until now. Playing at the Charing Cross Theatre just off Villiers Street, American playwright M. Kilburg Reedy's stage adaption takes Tey's classic and serves it up with a leavening Shakespearian twist. And what a historical tour de force it is. If you don't know your 15th-century history or House of York genealogy, you certainly will do after an evening here (the programme helpfully includes a family tree). We begin with Grant, who believes he can discern an individual's character through their face, so when his friend – glamorous actress Marta Hallard (played to the nines by Rachel Pickup) – brings him a selection of historical pictures to peruse, he becomes obsessed by the portrait of Richard III. This man doesn't resemble the devious hunchback of history who schemed his way to the throne and then had his nephews murdered in the Tower of London. If anything he looks cautious, thinks Grant (played with great bravura by Rob Pomfret) – sober, decent, more suited to the bench than the dock. So, since he's a detective and has nothing better to do, Grant embarks on a police-style investigation – complete with a board, map and pinned-up photographs of key individuals all connected with string – where with assistance from his sergeant (the excellent Sanya Adegbola) and a young lovelorn American named Brent Carradine (played by Harrison Sharpe, who nearly walks off with the show) he examines the contemporary and near-contemporary evidence for what really happened to the sons of Edward IV – namely Edward V and his brother Richard, Duke of York. What Grant discovers doesn't match up with what the traditional history and Tudor propagandists would have us believe. Chief among those propagandists was, of course, William Shakespeare. His history play Richard III was written in the early 1590s and was required to align with the sentiments of Elizabeth I, granddaughter of the man who defeated Richard III at Bosworth Field in 1485 – Henry Tudor. Rarely in the history of drama (probably not until Alan Rickman gave us Hans Gruber in Die Hard, anyway) has such a delicious, vile but downright charismatic villain ever been conceived as the Bard's 'poisonous bunch-backed toad'. The problem is that the play Shakespeare wrote was mostly rubbish, based on a fishy narrative written by Thomas More in the 1510s. What Tey's book did so expertly was to take Thomas More's version and tear it to pieces, largely by drawing on records and evidence that was much closer to the events described than More ever was. In Reedy's stage play, the same meticulous dissection takes place; so what we get is a journey through historical evidence that exposes the inconsistencies and omissions of the sources and the evidence upon which Shakespeare concocted his version of Richard III. And it's a historical romp – one delivered with all the impassion vim of Simon Schama after his second round of Weetabix. Of course, since it's a dramatisation there are deviations from the original. First, Reedy has taken the implied romance between Grant and Marta Hallard from the book and turned it into a full-blown subplot, one which turns – irony of ironies – on an act of deception that could have graced the pages of a Shakespeare comedy. This however fits remarkably neatly with another change introduced by Reedy, which is to use a Shakespearian actor, Simon Templeton (played brilliantly by Noah Huntley), to give voice to the Tudor 'case' against Richard III. And it works. While Tey's original dialogue is flawless – and Reedy used as much of it as she could, she says – there is so much more to the play, and many more laughs than one would have expected too (thanks not least to the nurses played by Hafsa Abbasi and Janna Fox). For fans of the book, the most significant change to the story comes in the selection of the killer of the young princes. Drawing on original sources, the playwright has come to a different conclusion – but it's one which I think holds just as much water as Tey's prime suspect. It certainly works in the context of the play, even if there are many people around now who believe (based on sound evidence by the way) that both princes actually survived the reign of Richard III and didn't die at all in 1483. What would Tey have made of the playwright's handiwork? I'm not sure she would have approved of the romantic subplot, since she never chose to marry Grant off herself and she could have done in his last outing (The Singing Sands of 1952), published posthumously. But – and it's an important but – the rest of it, I think, is spot on. At the heart of her book is the very probable innocence of Richard III and the concomitant calumny done against him ever since, something this lively play brings indisputably to life. 'Truth is the daughter of time, not authority,' is the Francis Bacon quote that inspired the title. Time will tell if this is the play that finally gets Richard III off the historical naughty step. The Daughter of Time is at the Charing Cross Theatre until 13 September.
Daily Mirror
9 hours ago
- Daily Mirror
Shopping centre statement after viral video of girl causing 'mayhem' stuns onlookers
A series of videos have gone viral on social media at the weekend showing a young girl causing 'chaos' at Manchester Arndale and now the shopping centre has issued a statement A major UK shopping centre has issued a statement after wild videos went viral on social media allegedly showing a young girl causing 'mayhem'. In the various clips, a young girl is spotted clambering on top of an escalator, being ushered away by security guards, and reportedly yanking another shopper's hair whilst inside Manchester's Arndale Shopping Centre. One video capturing the incident has been viewed by more than 55 million people on TikTok within just three days. Another snippet on X has amassed over 13 million views in barely 12 hours, with folks from all corners of the globe sharing their opinions on the footage. It comes after a family of 10 'barged out' of pub in brazen dine and dash after £320 meal. Some American viewers have drawn comparisons between the girl and children's book character Junie B Jones, as well as The Grinch's Cindy Lou Who. The footage appears to kick off with a young girl in a pink coat and her family having a row with a team of security staff outside a shop, alongside another group of shoppers. It's unclear what is being said, but online speculation suggests that the girl and her family were accused of shoplifting, with security seen separating the two groups of shoppers. As the clip rolls on, the girl and her family depart, before another young girl hurls an unidentified object towards where the security guards and the other group of shoppers are standing, reports the Manchester Evening News. In a subsequent video, believed to follow the earlier footage, the girl in the pink coat is seen descending an escalator ahead of two security staff. She then hoists herself onto the central partition between the moving staircases and climbs onto the adjacent escalator, which is stationary, proceeding to walk up its steps. At the top, she confronts a group of onlookers, before being filmed yanking the hair of a female shopper. The girl then returns down the escalator, all the while sporting a grin. The collection of videos has sparked a flurry of reactions, with some labelling the young girl a 'diva' while others condemn her behaviour. One viewer commented: "the pink jacket girl CLIMBING OVER the escalator, going back down it, and then going back up just gag her is frying me like WHO IS THIS DIVA LMFAOOO." They continued: "this entire situation is so chaotic i'm crying". Another remarked: "That escalator wasn't ready for a diva moment". While some were amused by the footage, there were those who expressed disapproval. A commenter stated: "I don't find her behaviour that funny." Another added: "Parents need to start parenting." There was also criticism towards those glamorising the girl's antics, with one individual questioning: "What an imbecile. Endangering others safety as well as her own. Why we calling her diva again?" One person said: "Hateee the way everyone's hyping this child up, like that is not a diva stop enabling this behaviour omg." Another voiced their concern: "maybe it's because i actually have kids and I'd die of embarrassment if they were like this, but the response to this girl overall being 'go off queen' is so ****ed." However, while some may think the event is recent, the Manchester Evening News has confirmed that the original videos were first shared on TikTok in March 2022 by @dreams_dreams24. The same account has recently re-uploaded the videos, causing 'pink coat girl' to become a viral sensation on TikTok once again. Shameless star Kelli Hollis also weighed in on the footage with her 293,000 followers, labelling the youngster a 'little madam'. In her video, Kelli commented: "She ain't a little diva, her. She's going to be a little ****ing nightmare is what she is." She continued: "It's funny because it's just pure cheek but she's a little madam." Manchester Arndale's spokesperson said: "We're aware of a video that has been recently circulated on social media, which shows an altercation that took place in Manchester Arndale and was attended by members of our Security team." They clarified: "Following a review of the footage, we can confirm that this is a historic incident that occurred several years ago."
The Herald Scotland
13 hours ago
- The Herald Scotland
Shark attacks, bites ex-NBA player's pregnant wife
The municipality is in the northeastern part of the U.S. territory, just east of San Juan. Carolina Municipal Police Commissioner Captain Ruben Moyeno confirmed to local media outlet GFR Media that the 39-year-old woman was bit by a shark on July 31. Boi, who is pregnant, was wading in the water when the attack occurred, according to the outlet's Aug. 4 report. Bahamas shark attack: American bit by shark while boating Wife of ex-NBA player taken to medical center The Italian journalist was transported to a medical center in Rio Piedra, where she snapped a selfie for the social media post that shows her tongue sticking out as she rests in a hospital bed. The territory's Department of Natural and Environmental Resources confirmed on July 31 the woman's bite was compatible with that of a shark, GFR Media reported. Eleonora Boi 'Doing fine' after surgery The soon-to-be mom called the event the worst day of her life in her post, but wrote she was recovering after surgery. "My baby and I are fine," she wrote. "I was rescued promptly and the surgery to put my poor bitten leg back in place went well." Boi did not release details about the leg injury or expand on the rescue. USA TODAY has reached out to police and local officials in Carolina. Boi then playfully mentions plans to civilly confront the fish responsible for her injuries. "Now I just have to recover from the huge scare and try to forgive the great friend who betrayed me," she continued in the post. "Regarding the shark, you will soon hear from my lawyers." Bio also thanked her husband "for all his love and courage," the post, and said the couple missed attending a Bad Bunny concert due to the incident. Montana mass murder: Who killed bartender, 3 others in quadruple shooting? What to know about the case Who is Danilo Gallinari? Gallinari is an Italian professsional baskeball player who played in Italy prior to being drafted by the Knicks in 2008. He currently plays for Italy's men's national basketball team. Data on international shark attacks According to the International Shark Attack File (ISAF), 47 people were bitten in unprovoked attacks last year. Four people died, including one person in the U.S. Each year, according to ISAF, the world averages about 65 documented shark attacks. On average, six fatal attacks are reported each year. Natalie Neysa Alund is a senior reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at nalund@ and follow her on X @nataliealund.
