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Nelson woman Nicola Fay Cruickshank has been warned she may face a prison sentence after admitting a charge of running a clandestine methamphetamine laboratory.
After her guilty plea in the High Court at Christchurch, Justice Graham Panckhurst told her that remanding her on bail and calling for a home detention report was not a guarantee or an indication of the final outcome.
"That won't be known until all the information is available," he said, remanding her for sentence in Christchurch on June 13.
Cruickshank, 39, is the mother of two-year-old Amber-Lee Cruickshank who disappeared at Kingston, near Queenstown, in 1992 and has never been found.
She is the mother of two other children.
When she was arrested on the drug charge last year, Christchurch police said she was the first woman in Canterbury to face charges of being a "meth cook".
Today she admitted manufacturing the class A drug methamphetamine in Christchurch between September 22 and October 19.
Defence counsel Tony Greig said Cruickshank had travelled from Nelson for today's appearance and she has been bailed to an address there.
She admitted running the clandestine laboratory at a time when she was in "in the grip of a severe addiction which she has managed to beat in the meantime", he said.
"That was the reason for the manufacturing and may be a reason for leniency in her sentencing," he said.
- NZPA
