Paige Rylee Cameron was 18-years-old when she began to receive calls from her father at Hopkins Correctional Centre about a plot to smuggle methylamphetamine and tobacco into the prison.

The Ballarat Magistrates' Court heard Cameron also had "random" calls and a car that sat outside her address for days before a stranger gave the teen eight small balloons to smuggle to her father.

About noon on March 30, 2019, Cameron went to Hopkins with the balloons concealed underneath her shirt by loose-fitting clothing.

There was no canine team stationed at the prison that day and she was able to move through to the canteen undetected.

The accused brought a drink for her father, where she dropped the balloons one at a time for him to swallow when drinking the beverage.

The man consumed a total of six balloons across the visit. He was unable to swallow two.

After the visit, Cameron's father returned to his cell and regurgitated two balloons but was unable to bring up the other four.

The next day, feeling unwell, he alerted prison staff to the crime.

The prisoner was unable to pass the remaining balloons and required surgery to remove them from his stomach.

On April 3, 2019, authorities seized the four balloons, totalling 52 grams in weight, and opened them to find tightly packed tobacco and .72g of a white crystal-like substance believed to be methylamphetamine.

The two balloons regurgitated in the father's cell are still unaccounted for.

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The accused was later interviewed at Ballarat police station and made full admissions to smuggling the balloons, although she did not know what was in them.

"My reason was so my dad wouldn't get injured in jail," she told authorities.

"So Dad wouldn't get hurt."

Defence counsel for the accused, now 23-years-old, said she had no prior criminal history and asked the magistrate to consider a good behaviour order.

"She accepts responsibility for what she did," he said.

"She felt she had no other option at the time.

"She no longer communicates with her father.

"[He] received injuries for this."

Police prosecutor Senior Constable Jack Fletcher said the court should consider jail to send a message that the court denounced Cameron's behaviour to the community.

"Trying to smuggle contraband into a prison, regardless of whether it's tobacco, regardless of whether it's methamphetamine ... it is a conscious decision to blatantly defraud people to smuggle things in for no legal purpose," he said.

"A short, sharp term of imprisonment is not out of range at all."

But Magistrate Mark Stratmann said jail time for the young woman would not be appropriate.

Cameron could be seen to cry at moments throughout the proceedings.

"I understand by your demeanour in court today you understand the seriousness of this," Mr Stratmann said.

She was convicted and ordered to complete 50 hours of community service work within six months.

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