Juror gets eight months for Facebook chat.

A woman juror who contacted a defendant through Facebook, causing a multimillion-pound trial to collapse, has become the first person to be jailed for contempt of court for using the internet.

Joanne Fraill, 40, broke down and sobbed uncontrollably as she was imprisoned for eight months after she used the website to exchange messages with Jamie Sewart, 34, who had been acquitted in an ongoing drug trial in Manchester.

As Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, announced her sentence, Fraill said "eight months" before putting her head on the table in front of her and cried.

With her head in her arms and visibly shaken, the mother-of-three, with three stepchildren, was told there would be a short adjournment "for everyone to calm down".

When proceedings started again, the Lord Chief Justice, Igor Judge, said in a written ruling: "Her conduct in visiting the internet repeatedly was directly contrary to her oath as a juror, and her contact with the acquitted defendant, as well as her repeated searches on the internet, constituted flagrant breaches of the orders made by the judge for the proper conduct of the trial."

Leaving court after sentencing, Sewart said: "I really feel for the woman (Fraill). She's got kids. She apologised and she's not a bad lady. I really feel for her."

Before being taken to the cells, Fraill hugged relatives, who were also crying.

Fraill admitted being in contempt of court and was sentenced at London's High Court after she used the website to exchange messages with Sewart.

Sewart was a defendant who had already been acquitted in an ongoing drug trial in Manchester last year. The trial collapsed as a result of their conduct.

Fraill, from Blackley, Manchester, also admitted using the internet to research Sewart's boyfriend, Gary Knox, a co-defendant, while the jury was still deliberating.

Sewart was given a two-month sentence suspended for two years after being found guilty of contempt.

Fraill revealed highly sensitive details about jury room discussions when she swopped online messages.

Fraill's lawyer, Peter Wright QC, told the court that her heavily pregnant daughter was in labour, causing "additional anguish" for her.

The jury was still considering charges against other defendants, and her actions led the case - a second retrial - to collapse, contributing to a [pounds sterling]6 million (R66m) legal bill.

Lord Judge said Fraill had made "flagrant breaches of the orders made by the judge" in the trial in which she was a juror.

Lord Judge heard the case with two other senior judges, and he acknowledged that Fraill was "a woman of good character" who was not intent on perverting the course of justice.

But, he added, "misuse of the internet by a juror" was always "a most serious irregularity and contempt".

In a warning to present and future jurors, he said that committing a similar offence "is virtually inevitable".

"The sentence is intended to ensure the continuing integrity of trial by jury. Throughout, she (Fraill) was acting on her own initiative, without any oblique motive, and there is no evidence to suggest that she used her searches on the internet in order to exert improper influence on the verdicts of the jury.

"Without in any way condoning her actions in contacting Sewart after Sewart's acquittal, we carried out an examination of the psychiatric evidence to understand how her own background may have led her to wish to commiserate with Sewart's personal problems, arising from the fact that a 14-month period in custody had separated her from her baby."

But the text of the communications between them "went much further than the expression of a compassionate concern".

When the question of her Facebook contact was raised with her in the court, "this woman of good character immediately and unhesitatingly admitted what she had done and apologised for it".

She then went on to provide evidence against herself.

"The effect of all these stresses and strains was virtually palpable here in court," Lord Judge said.

"There will be an order for immediate custody for a period of eight months."