"Drug dealing daughter and mum had £1,000 of cannabis in car"

Lauren Chapman avoided a jail sentence while her mother Sharon was given a community order



A young woman and her mother who were caught in her car with more than £1,000 worth of cannabis in a plastic bag have admitted they intended to sell it.

Lauren and Sharon Chapman pleaded guilty at Warwick Crown Court to possessing cannabis with intent to supply, and Lauren also admitted being concerned in supplying cannabis previously.

Lauren Chapman, 25, of Rylands Crescent, Stoke Golding, near Hinckley, was sentenced to 12 months in prison suspended for two years and was ordered to do 120 hours of unpaid work.

Sharon Chapman, 47, of Common Way, Stoke, Coventry, was given a 12-month community order.

Both women were ordered to take part in rehabilitation activities and to pay costs of £350 in Lauren’s case and £175 in her mother’s case.

Feargus Campbell, prosecuting, said that at 4pm on August 13 last year the police had information that the occupants of a BMW had been involved in an exchange of drugs.

When they stopped it outside Sharon’s Coventry home, she was in the passenger seat and her daughter, whose car it was, was driving.

On the central console between them was a plastic bag which Lauren admitted contained cannabis.

There were 138 grams (five ounces) of herbal cannabis, which commonly sells for £10 a gram on the street, and both women were arrested and their homes were searched.

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.

And at Lauren’s home they found £1,150 in cash and a box with cannabis, scales, a grinder and a roll of small plastic bags.

She 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, and that it would last her three months.

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.

Sharon also claimed the cannabis found at her home was for personal use and that she smoked 7-8 grams a day – but had run out because the cannabis at her home was of ‘shocking quality’ and unfit to smoke.

Mr Campbell suggested Lauren’s was ‘a significant role’ because the dealing was ‘her own concern.’

And of Sharon, he added: “She was aware of the nature and scale of her daughter’s operation and had attended to collect a large quantity of cannabis - and she would have been aware of the lifestyle of her daughter, who was able to afford a BMW and to accumulate a large amount of cash, despite being unemployed.”

Sentencing the two women, Recorder Freeman told Lauren: “Clearly you did have quite a flourishing cannabis supply operation, although I accept it was to friends and acquaintances.

“It is quite clear your role falls into the significant class and you deserve to go to prison for 12 months.

“But I am 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.”

And 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.”