A young woman who brought a pair of sneakers to Bermuda that were found to be concealing heroin with a street value of $51,840, has told a jury how she agreed to bring the shoes back to the Island for an acquaintance.

Shaunnah Melanie Dill was only 18 when she was stopped at the Customs checkpoint in Bermuda International Airport in April, 2004 where officers found two packages hidden in the soles of a pair of New Balance sneakers she was carrying in a plastic bag.

The packages contained 77.78 grams of a brown powder, which was analysed and found to be 10 percent heroin.

A jury at the Supreme Court has heard that when Dill was warned at the airport she was under arrest for suspicion of importing a controlled drug, she replied: ?Oh, My God. You have to be kidding?, and started to cry.

Dill, of Sousa Estate Road, Devonshire, has pleaded not guilty to importing a controlled drug and a second charge of being in possession of a control drug with intent to supply.

The court was played a tape of an interview made the day after Dill was arrested. Dill, who is now 20, told Police she had met with a man called Ian while on a three-day trip to New York. She said Ian was a ?familiar face? ? a Bermudian she had met before ? but she did not know his second name.

He had asked her to take the sneakers back to Bermuda to give to another acquaintance called Jamie.

Detective Sgt. Hayden Small, under cross-examination by defence lawyer Victoria Pearman, said he had retrieved two photographs from Dill?s luggage, one of which showed Dill with a man and the other of the same man alone.

Asked if he recognised this man in relation to his work as a Police narcotics officer, he replied: ?Yes. He is Ian DeSilva.?

Giving evidence in court, Dill explained she had gone to New York on April 15, 2004 with a girlfriend and met up with two other friends at the Marriott Hotel where they shared a room.

During the three-day trip she had mostly done shopping and also met with the some other acquaintances, one of whom was a man she knew as Ian.

She told the court that the evening before she was due to return to Bermuda Ian asked if she would take some sneakers back to the Island for a friend called Jamie.

?He said ?Oh, can you take these sneakers back to Jamie that he?s been wanting?? and I was like ?Yeah?,? she told the court.

She was also asked to take a pair of red and black Adidas sneakers as well, because Ian said he could not wear those colours in his part of New York for ?gang-related? reasons.

The court heard Dill was arrested as she returned to Bermuda on an American Airlines flight from JFK Airport on April 18, 2004 after a Police dog called ?Rokki? alerted its handler that it had detected the scent of a controlled drug in the grey plastic bag Dill was carrying as part of her hand luggage.

The grey bag was searched by Customs officers and found to contain two pairs of sneakers ? the red and black Adidas pair and a pair of brown and tan New Balance sneakers.

Two packages containing the heroin were found concealed inside the New Balance shoes beneath the inner sole. No drugs were found in the other pair of sneakers or in the remainder of Dill?s luggage. A search of her home also failed to find any drugs.

The case continues.