Zilos

Pottering about her kitchen with her grey hair and spectacles, grandmother Patricia Tabram cuts an unlikely figure as a drug dealer.

But the sprightly 66-year-old, who prides herself on her home-made herbal cookies, casseroles and soups, has admitted possessing cannabis with intent to supply from her home in East Lea, in Humshaugh, near Hexham, Northumberland.

She has cooked up treats laced with the drug for neighbours and friends in her village after being introduced to it last year.

A defiant Mrs Tabram told the Press Association today from the sitting room of her remote bungalow: “Friends introduced me to cannabis in February 2004 when they gave me a cigarette.

“I suffer from depression, whiplash in my neck and back pain. I went to bed and the next morning I felt so much better.

“I didn’t know what I had taken so I asked my friends. They said it was cannabis.

“But I don’t like smoking so they said I could cook with it.”

Soon, the grandmother-of-two began cooking regularly for friends with food laced with the illegal herb.

However, Northumbria Police were tipped off about the savoury smells and activities coming from Mrs Tabram’s bungalow and twice raided her house in May and June.

They seized 31 cannabis plants growing in her loft and another one from her hallway table, which officers had missed until Mrs Tabram pointed it out.

“When the police came to my door I invited them in,” she said.

“They said I had been growing cannabis plants in my shed. They went to look for them but didn’t find anything.

“I told them to look in the loft and I offered them some tea and biscuits.”

The teetotal grandmother added: “From the way the police were talking you would think I was the biggest criminal in Hexham.”

As she sits in her armchair, she rings her friends to tell of her newly-found celebrity status.

“It’s grandma here,” she says, as she talks to one neighbour.

There’s a knock at the door. Another friend had come to see her.

Not wishing to give his name, the man in his 20s, said: “To say she is convicted drug dealer is just crazy, if you ask me.

“It is terrible the way she has been treated by the police and the courts.

“She is 66 years old and is classed as a drug dealer. The police keep picking on her yet they do nothing about cocaine dealers round here.”

Mrs Tabram, a former chef, has continued to cook, making her chicken and leek pies, curries, beef casseroles, chocolate cakes and biscuits – but has left out the illegal herb from the recipes.

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