9:38am Tuesday 9th March 2010
By Andrew Bellard
A DARWEN publican paid £1,000 on her credit card for equipment which her partner used to set up a cannabis farm in a bedroom above the pub.
Blackburn magistrates heard the couple had decided to grow their own instead of spending £100 a month on their addiction.
Debra Ann Nichol has had her licence to run The Office pub suspended for six months as a result of the offence.
Nichol, 39, and Matthew Ian Wilson, 28, both of The Office, Holden Fold, admitted producing cannabis.
She was made subject to community supervision for 18 months, had her licence suspended for six months and was ordered to pay £85 costs.
He was made subject to community supervision for nine months, ordered to do 200 hours unpaid work and pay £85 costs.
Parveen Akhtar, prosecuting, said police executed a drugs search warrant at The Office where Nichol was the personal licence holder.
In an upstairs bedroom they found a sophisticated growing set-up including 12 cannabis plants.
Wilson told police they had decided six weeks earlier that it would be a good idea to grow it themselves. He had sourced the equipment and seeds on the internet and Nichol had paid the £1,000.
John Clish, defending, said the past 12 months had been difficult for Nichol.
Her mother had been hospitalised and she had needed hospital treatment after being violently attacked by an ex-partner.
© Copyright 2001-2012 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/trade_directory/