A DRUG addict jailed for dealing crack cocaine from a York house has been found hanged in her prison cell less than 24 hours after being sentenced.

Rebecca Louise Turner, 22, of Burton Stone Lane, Clifton, apparently took her life in her cell at Low Newton Prison, near Durham, yesterday morning .

She was sentenced to a total of two years and three months imprisonment when she appeared at York Crown Court on Tuesday and admitted two charges of being concerned with the supply of crack cocaine last summer.

She was also in breach of a combination order imposed for shoplifting.

A Home Office spokeswoman confirmed that Turner was found by prison staff at 8.55am yesterday.

"Prison health workers and paramedics attended but she was pronounced dead at 9.17am."

The spokeswoman said that her family had been informed of the death.

Turner, who was being treated with methadone to combat her drug addiction, had been caught in a secret police sting as she and Wayne Ronald Coxon acted as "doorkeepers" at the crack house in Newborough Street, York.

Officers carrying out a secret surveillance operation on the suspected drugs den recorded that the address attracted more than 150 visitors in only one week.

Coxon, 23, was jailed for a total of three-and-a-half years for his part in the operation and for breaking a drug order imposed for a string of shoplifting offences.

Low Newton is a closed, female prison, which is situated about four miles south west of Durham and which has a capacity of nearly 400 inmates.

Prisoners there are employed on a number of schemes including a packing shop, where prisoners put together breakfast packs for other prisons; a textile workshop and a gardening team.

Updated: 10:44 Thursday, July 29, 2004