A MOTHER caught with almost half a kilo of heroin was shown “leniency she did not deserve” after giving birth in custody.

Kafayat Sarumi was found with the Class A drugs worth up to £40,000 outside TK Maxx in Cowley, Oxford, after shoplifting from the store and threatening security guards with a broken bottle.

Judge Anthony King jailed the 39-year-old for three years, the maximum sentence which would still allow her to keep her six-week-old child with her at Bronzefield women’s prison.

He said: “It’s no fault of that child that you are where you are and I have to consider that child’s future, as do you, I suggest, when you are released.

“The result is a degree of leniency which you yourself do not deserve.”

Sarumi, of The Slade, Headington, Oxford, has 10 previous convictions for 39 offences including being jailed for three years for “a near- identical offence” in 2007.

Judge King said he “significantly reduced” the latest sentence to prevent the defendant’s child being taken into care.

Matthew Walsh, prosecuting, said the offences occurred at about noon on December 21 when Sarumi was seen stealing a £42 pair of boots from TK Maxx in the John Allen Centre.

He said she was challenged by store detectives, but drove off in a Honda, causing one of them to jump out of the way.

When the security guards managed to take the keys from Sarumi, she picked up a bottle by its neck, smashed it, and waved it at the men, Mr Walsh said.

She told police she had been given the 480 grams of heroin, split into one-ounce packages, by two men from Birmingham who told her to take it to a woman called Donna in Iffley Road.

She was also found with a £20 bag of crack cocaine.

Trudi Yeatman, defending, said her client had led a crime-free life until 2003 when she began smoking crack cocaine after a relationship breakdown.

She said Sarumi had been clean from drugs since 2007 but had been pressurised by the Birmingham men to continue running drugs for them.

Judge King heard two men had broken into her house last month and demanded money and threatened her partner with a gun.

Police are still investigating this incident.

Miss Yeatman said: “This is a sad, if not tragic, case.

“Not just because a baby has been born in custody (on February 3), but because Miss Sarumi is no longer in the grip of a Class A drug addiction, but is somebody who is dealing with the aftermath of such.”

Sarumi earlier admitted possession of Class A drugs with intent to supply, possession of Class A drugs, shoplifting and having an offensive weapon.