23/06/2021
Mum and daughter dealt drugs to people in their village from car
Sharon and Lauren Chapman were caught with more than £1,000 of cannabis (Picture: SWNS)
Wednesday 23 Jun 2021 7:46 am
A drug-dealing mum and daughter caught supplying cannabis from a car in their village have been spared jail — and walked free with a broad grin.
Sharon, 47, and Lauren Chapman, 25, were pulled over by police who found a stash of cannabis. Searches at their houses found more drugs and £1,150 cash.
Lauren claimed the cannabis was all for personal use, saying she bought a large quantity in one go because she had had trouble getting hold of it.
But messages on her phone showed she had been dealing to 33 individual customers, and that she had previously made a bulk five-ounce purchase of the drug.
In Sharon’s home officers found three cannabis plants, a Quality Street tin with cannabis in it, as well as a box, another tin and two bags all with cannabis in them.
The pair later admitted possessing cannabis with intent to supply.
A court heard jobless Lauren — a mother herself — bought a BMW as result of the scale of her drug dealing operation.
But Beth Crocker, defending Lauren, said she dealt to friends and associates who she knew on a social basis, and had traded in a Mini to buy the BMW which ‘was not funded by supplying drugs.’
She claimed to be dealing to support her own habit, and the cash was money she had saved or which belonged to her daughter, for whom she was the sole carer.
At Warwick crown court, Mr Recorder Freeman told Lauren: ‘Clearly you did have quite a flourishing cannabis supply operation, although I accept it was to friends and acquaintances.
‘You deserve to go to prison for 12 months. But I’m not going to send you down because of two things.
‘One is your daughter, who you are looking after, and the other is that, very sensibly, you are not contesting where the prosecution put you.
He told Sharon: ‘Clearly you have been quite a heavy user of cannabis over the years, but this was, as far as we know, your first contact with dealing.
You were with your daughter who had brought you into it.
He gave Lauren a year’s suspended sentence and Sharon a 12-month community order. Both got rehab orders.
