A judge slammed a mum who took her young children into a home where she knew cannabis was being grown but stopped short of sending her to jail. Lauren Martin was at a house in Woodley, with her kids, when it was raided by police.
Inside, officers found 10 cannabis plants growing in the loft and around half-a-kilo of cannabis in bin bags. Prosecution barrister Richard Wilcock told Minshull Street Crown Court that there was also £7,000 in the property when the warrant was carried out on August 14 2019.
Martin, 25, had been staying at the house and said she had gone back that day to collect her belongings, before moving in with her aunt. She was arrested and eventually pleaded guilty to allowing a premises to be used for cultivation of cannabis, on the basis that the cannabis farm and the cash did not belong to her.
The judge, Recorder Taylor asked defence barrister James Preece: "What was she thinking taking children into a cannabis farm?"
Mr Preece responded: "She wasn’t thinking as she ought to have been. She regrets her behaviour and offending. She is embarrassed to find herself here". Mr Preece also told the court that Martin was abused as a child and suffers with depression.
Recorder Taylor sentenced Martin, of Grimshaw Close, Bredbury, to 16 weeks imprisonment, suspended for 12 months. He said: "What tips this into being a custodial sentence rather than a community order is you taking young children into a house where cannabis was being grown and half-a-kilo of cannabis was being stored. However in view of all the circumstances and the role you played in it, I am able to suspend that sentence."
