A court has been told an Eltham woman charged with helping a prisoner who had escaped from Whanganui Hospital met him only fleetingly for sex.
Melisa Jayne Mannex claimed she did not know that Kenneth John Burns was on the run when he contacted her in December last year.
In the New Plymouth District Court today, Judge Allan Roberts said the 38-year-old mother of four would have to have been "deaf, dumb and blind" not to have known Burns had escaped custody.
The remand prisoner overpowered two Corrections officers and escaped from the hospital on 11 December.
He was recaptured in Eltham on 27 December.
Judge Roberts sentenced Mannex to four months home detention and ordered her to complete 120 hours of community work.
Two other woman are due to appear in the Hawera District Court on similar charges.
