Mum allowed Leeds council house to be used to grow cannabis

A mum allowed her council house to be used to grow cannabis plants in exchange for a share of the profits, a court heard.

Police made the discovery at Tanya Clowes’s home in Middleton, Leeds, on August 4 this year after they believed a wanted man was living there.

Officers did not find the person they were looking for but instead found 18 cannabis plants in one of the rooms.

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The room had also been equipped with heating and lighting equipment. The window had been boarded up and fitted with insulation.

Joe Colley, prosecuting, said Clowes was at home at the time with he partner and their four year old daughter was asleep in bed.

Mr Colley said the plants were capable of producing around £6,000 worth of the class B drug. Clowes was interviewed and told officers that the plants belonged to her partner. She said he had been responsible for growing them but she had agreed to let him use the premises in exchange for half of the proceeds of the sale if the cannabis.

She said she expected to be given around £4,000 which she planned to use to pay off a long-standing drug debt.

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Clowes, of Throstle Terrace, Middleton, pleaded guilty to permitting premises to be used for the production of cannabis. Marcus Waite, mitigating, said Clowes admitted responsibility at an early stage.

He added that his client had not been in trouble for more than eight years, worked hard and cared for her daughter. Mr Waite said Clowes had been tempted into committing the offence as a man she owed a drug debt to for cocaine was released from prison and began to demand money from her.

Clowes was given a ten month sentence, suspended for two years, and made the subject if a curfew for two months.

Judge Neil Clark said: “An aggravating feature of this case is that you let your house be used for criminal activity where a child was present.”

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