ACTRESS Tina Malone blamed a social media post apparently showing a picture of one of James Bulger's killers on stress caused by her Barrow panto cocaine arrest.

The Shameless actress told the High Court she was suicidal after police found cocaine in her handbag while she starred as the wicked fairy godmother in the Sleeping Beauty panto at Cloud 9 in Barrow in Christmas 2017.

She said she was on 'high doses of anti-depressants six weeks after a mental breakdown', when she posted the picture allegedly showing Jon Venables on Facebook.

A national newspaper reported she told the court: ‘I turned up to do a pantomime at a theatre and when I arrived it wasn’t a theatre it was a nightclub. There were no toilets, no dressing rooms.

"I changed in front of 30 children every day in a leotard in the wings and the police came and arrested me and my daughter arrived and the paps were there.

"They said is this your bag and I said yes, and they opened it up. They opened up my eyelash case and they said is this yours. There were drugs inside.

"I projectile vomited all over the police and over the floor."

She accepted a caution for possession, but claimed the drugs were planted in her bag.

The High Court heard that she shared a post on Facebook in February last year which purportedly included an image and the new name of Venables.

She was handed an eight-month suspended sentence for two years by Lord Chief Justice Lord Burnett.

The court heard she was suffering with mental health problems when she shared the post and that she is the main carer for her five-year-old daughter and elderly mother.

Lord Burnett, sitting with Mr Justice Warby, said: “We have concluded that, although the custody threshold is undoubtedly passed in this case, the personal circumstances and mitigation of this defendant are such that we should impose a suspended committal order."

Malone’s barrister Adam Speker told the court the 56-year-old accepted that she was in breach of the injunction.

He said she understood that Venables had been given anonymity for his protection.

The Shameless star told the court she was not aware that she was doing anything wrong when she shared the post.

A court order was made “against the world” in 2001 which bans the publication of anything that purports to reveal the identities of Venables and Robert Thompson.

They have been living anonymously with new identities since being released from a life sentence for the kidnap, torture and murder of James in 1993, when they were both aged 10.

Simon Crompton, of Cloud Nine, said: “It hasn’t been made clear from recent reports but technically she was stopped on a nearby street then the police requested to search the premises.

“It’s common knowledge that she didn’t get on well with the rest of the cast and left immediately after the show. She isolated herself a little bit."