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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Judge Bernadette Schmaltz released a 25-year-old woman from custody Tuesday until her next court appearance, a choice she said she didn't make lightly.

Schmaltz called the woman's record "appalling" for her age and added "I'm making a decision I am quite sure I will lose sleep over tonight."

The woman, Toni-Lynn Buggins, pleaded guilty to two charges dating back to 2005.

One of those charges is the theft of her neighbour's truck. In December 2005, Buggins took the truck and drove it down Highway 3.

She was found by an undercover RCMP officer heading into Yellowknife from Behchoko with his family.

Buggins was walking down the highway and flagged the undercover officer down by waving her arms.

She asked him to drive her back to Yellowknife, telling him she had crashed her father's truck, said Crown lawyer Michael Himmelman.

When the RCMP officer reached Yellowknife, however, he contacted the RCMP in the city and asked for a background check - at which point it was found Buggins was "at large" and the truck was stolen.

Buggins failed to appear for her court appearance that year and went to Alberta. There, she twice attempted to get her Yellowknife charges transferred to Alberta so that she could face all her charges together.

In Alberta, she accumulated several charges, including a drug possession charge, possession of stolen property, impaired driving and a breach of probation. Buggins will now attempt to get those Alberta charges transferred to a court in Yellowknife.

In a letter read before court, she admitted to an eight-year-long crack cocaine addiction, but added she is now ready to turn her life around.

"I was in Yellowknife not even 24 hours before I turned myself in," she said. "I've never cared so much as I do now about my life, my future and my family."

Buggins has recently become engaged and has a grandfather who she said has become very ill.

Defence attorney Caroline Wawzonek told the court that Buggins had suggested her own strict conditions for being allowed out of custody - including arranging afternoon counselling sessions for her addictions.

Himmelman did not relent in his position that Buggins should be kept in custody and said she seemed to be "minimizing" the scope of her addiction.

"Suddenly, she is able to control that addiction because she cares," he said, questioning whether that was enough motivation.

Schmaltz released the woman on condition that she abstain from drugs and alcohol - asking her "Can you do it?"

Buggins also has to be inside her residence - she will stay with her parents - every day between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m., unless in counselling, and has to report daily in person to the RCMP during the week.

"I don't want to set you up for a breach," Schmaltz said.