A Supreme Court justice in St. John's apologized to a woman convicted of drug trafficking Tuesday as he sentenced her to two years in prison.

Justice Alphonsus Faour told Shannon Boutcher he was "sorry" about the sentence, and said he would have preferred to give the woman less time.

Boutcher, 29, was caught on video smuggling cocaine, Dilaudid and marijuana into Her Majesty's Penitentiary in St. John's in March 2014.

The drugs were hidden inside a Kinder Surprise capsule.

Justice Alphonsus Faour says he had no choice but to sentence Boutcher to the mandatory minimum of two years in prison. (Glenn Payette/CBC News)

She was convicted of three counts of trafficking drugs inside a prison, which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of two years in prison.

Boutcher's lawyer, Michael Ralph, filed an application calling the mandatory minimum sentence "cruel and unusual treatment or punishment" that violated his client's charter rights.

Ralph said this was a "single, unsophisticated" act.

The Kinder Surprise capsule contained drugs Boutcher smuggled into Her Majesty's Penitentiary for her boyfriend in March 2014. (Glenn Payette/CBC News)

Faour said he looked at case law for the offence and found that the range was from "12 months to three years or more."

The judge said the now two-year mandatory minimum sentence was not "grossly disproportionate" to those sentences, and he had no choice but to give Boutcher two years.

"Sorry the result has to be this way. It's not something I would have done," he said Tuesday, though the judge didn't specify what his alternative sentence would have been.

"You got caught up in something here. I hope over the next few months, you can put this behind you," Faour said.

The judge also encouraged Boutcher to take advantage of whatever counseling opportunities are made available to her.

Last week Boutcher's boyfriend, Steven Rumsey, 34, was convicted of possessing cocaine and Dilaudid for his role in the Kinder caper, and sentenced to four months.

It was learned during his sentencing that Boutcher was paid $200 to bring the drugs to Rumsey. She was captured on video passing the plastic capsule to him.

Rumsey was also sentenced to 18 months on a string of shoplifting charges, including stealing three flying squirrels from a Pets Unlimited in St. John's.