Woman is jailed after £35,000 cannabis raid

Nasreen Fulat expected to earn up to £500 in rent for allowing nine plants to be grown in an upstairs room of her Batley home.

But the plants and a stash of drugs worth £35,000 were discovered by police following a tip-off from a member of the public.

Leeds Crown Court heard 25-year-old Fulat became heavily dependent on alcohol and cannabis after escaping an abusive relationship.

Judge Geoffrey Marson QC said: “You regularly met cannabis dealers in order to get your supplies. Unfortunately, people saw you as a way of protecting themselves from detection in dealing with class A and other drugs.”

The court heard officers went to Fulat’s house in Enfield Road on February 27, 2010, after reports that a burglary was taking place.

Prosecutor Simon Batiste said they found nine cannabis plants growing in an upstairs room and a padlocked holdall in a cupboard.

Inside the bag was 609g of cocaine of 87 per cent purity worth £24,000.

Elsewhere they found more cocaine, skunk cannabis, 13,800 caffeine pills, 607 diazepam tablets and cannabis, plastic bags and scales.

Mr Batiste said Fulat, now of Alexander Crescent, Dewsbury, admitted renting out the room to someone who planned to grow cannabis.

But Ricky Holland, mitigating, said Fulat had not agreed for the other drugs to be stored or cut at her home.

He said that when she discovered the holdall, she made it clear that she was not happy for it to be kept there.

Mr Holland also drew the court’s attention to Fulat’s threats to harm herself, her fragile mental state and a psychological report detailing her obsessive compulsive disorder and borderline personality disorder.

Jailing her for two years on Friday, Judge Marson said it had been one of the most difficult sentencing cases he had dealt with.

He said he had taken into account her vulnerability, the probation and psychological reports, her previous good character and guilty plea.