A maid helped her boyfriend to bring drugs into the country, was jailed on Monday for four years. Listiyanti Ayu Astuti, 26, was carrying 3.88g of heroin in a slingbag when the couple were arrested on June 27 last year in Eunos Crescent.

A district court heard that the Indonesian maid arrived in Singapore in August 2010. She ran away from her employers in March 2012 to stay with Mohamed Murad Hassan, 39, a Singaporean.

The couple would rent rooms in various parts of Singapore. She saw him consuming heroin and also watched him pack the drugs in plastic bags and straws and sell these at a void deck at Circuit Road.

Officers from the Central Narcotics Bureau arrested the couple after a tip-off.

Asking for the court to impose a compassionate sentence, her lawyer said that Listiyanti had been made to "work very long hours with little rest and food".

District Judge Mathew Joseph said that the circumstances that prompted her into running away, "did not justify committing more serious offences".

Mohamed Murad is to stand trial for drug consumption and trafficking in the High Court.