A widowed mother who is dying of AIDS has been ordered to serve out a seven-year jail sentence for smuggling cocaine to Bermuda.

Judges yesterday threw out Janice Dayle-Smith's request for an appeal despite hearing she may only have two years to live.

The panel of three judges, led by Court of Appeals President Sir James Astwood, made the ruling to warn American drugs barons Bermuda was not a "soft touch''.

Sir James told the court: "If we start treating AIDS sufferers leniently, we will only encourage the use of couriers who are suffering from a terminal illness.

"The drugs barons will simply say: `Send them down to Bermuda. Nothing will happen to them if they catch them'.

"This has been tried before but the courts have learned a lesson and ignored it.'' Mother-of-six Dayle-Smith, 42, of King Street, Pembroke, was sentenced in June after pleading guilty to importing nearly half a kilo of cocaine -- worth $155,625 -- with intent to supply.

She tried to escape from Police when the drugs were found inside four bottles of hair products during a routine customs check at Bermuda International Airport in January 1995. But she eventually told officers she had just returned from a trip to New York where she gave a Colombian $2,000 on behalf of another man, Vincent Oneal Douglas.

Southampton taxi driver Douglas, of Plumber's Lane, was given two concurrent 12-year sentences.

Jamaican Dayle-Smith, who caught the HIV virus from her late Bermudian husband, gave evidence against Douglas at his trial last June. She claimed he hoodwinked her into the role of drugs courier.

And she also delivered the cocaine to him under Police surveillance in Bermuda to help detectives.

Her lawyer Kim Wilson yesterday argued for an appeal because of her client's terminal illness and her "invaluable assistance to the Police.'' She also asked the court to consider her guilty plea and the fact that three of her children live and go to school in Bermuda.

But Appeals judge Sir Derek Cons said the panel ruled she could not be granted leave to appeal. He said: "The burden of her application to this court is that the Chief Justice failed to give sufficient weight either to her personal circumstances or to her co-operation with the Police in disclosing the involvement of Mr. Douglas and securing his conviction.

"Mrs. Dayle-Smith is very sick. She was diagnosed as HIV positive a number of years ago -- a fact attributed to her husband -- and now has full blown AIDS.

"If she declines to take medicine, which has happened before, her life expectancy may well be less than two years.

"The courts in England and Wales may, as an act of compassion and mercy, discount what would otherwise be appropriate sentences of imprisonment because of a defendant's particular medical circumstances. Only the most exceptional circumstances can expect to get consideration.'' He said an exception could not be made for Dayle-Smith because it would make it easier for drug smugglers "to achieve their aims by recruiting as couriers those whose personal or family circumstances are most likely to arouse sympathy if apprehended.''