Mum jailed for helping gang grow cannabis

MOTHER-OF-ONE Sharon Hughes has been jailed for two years and eight months after she helped produce cannabis worth tens of thousands of pounds.

The 40-year-old had the loft at her home in Millstone Avenue, Butt Lane, converted into a cannabis factory in March this year.

Prosecutor Heather Chamberlin told Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court yesterday that the operation was discovered after a police officer visited the house on March 31 this year and smelled the drugs.

A search was carried out at the house the next day. Police found 10 plants and a hydroponic set-up including lamps and a heater.

They also noticed the electricity supply had been bypassed.

The plants would have produced a yield of between 593 grams and 1,097 grams, with a value of between £3,380 and £6,260.

Hughes, who has a 10-year-old son, told police she was a heavy cannabis user and the habit cost her about £100 a week.

She said she allowed two men to set up the system in her house to reduce the amount she had to spend buying the drug. She admitted receiving some of the drugs for being the "gardener" and expected to receive a small financial reward.

On September 7, while on bail for that crime, Hughes was caught red-handed watering cannabis plants in a prefabricated building at HDS industrial yard in Chesterton.

Police found 103 cannabis plants in the building and when they entered Hughes was wearing gloves and watering the plants with a hose pipe. The crop had a potential yield of 13.6 kilograms with a valuation, if sold in ounces, of between £47,000 and £67,000. If sold in kilograms the value was estimated at between £27,000 and £47,000. And if sold in grams it was put at about £68,000.

Hughes, who has a previous conviction for possessing ecstasy with intent to supply, for which she received a suspended sentence in 1999, pleaded guilty to two charges of producing cannabis.

Paul Cliff, mitigating, said in both cases Hughes was acting as a gardener.

He said: "She had built up a significant amount of debt to the people providing her. She was smoking far too much. One of the ways to reduce the debt was to agree to assist with the production of it by acting as a gardener."

Mr Cliff said Hughes accepted she would receive a prison sentence and had arranged for her son to live with her sister.

Judge Paul Glenn said: "The first of these offences involved you providing a safe haven for the production of cannabis in your loft.

"You got involved again, on a far greater scale. It really was a factory in Chesterton. The set-up showed hallmarks of professionals.

"You now claim you were doing it to pay off a drug debt. But you prioritised your own needs over the welfare of your son. You knew the consequences if you were caught, and you chose to continue to abuse cannabis and get involved in its growth."

Hughes will serve up to half the sentence, with the rest completed on licence. A proceeds of crime hearing will be held in the week beginning on March 15.