KEY POINTS:
LONDON - A grandmother who extols the virtues of cooking with cannabis was sentenced to 250 hours' unpaid work in the community after being convicted of illegally growing the plant at her home.
Patricia Tabram, 68, a former chef from Humshaugh, Northumberland, told the court that she used
the drug to ease her depression, aches and pains.
But she now faces being evicted from her housing association bungalow after a jury at Carlisle Crown Court found her guilty of the cultivation and possession of the class C drug.
Judge Barbara Forrester told the grey-haired pensioner she must pay 1000 pounds in costs as well as carry out 175 hours' community service for cultivating four cannabis plants and a further 75 hours for possessing powdered cannabis which she stored in her kitchen and added to cakes, curries, casseroles and soups.
But outside court Tabram remained defiant, insisting she would defy the law and continue to take cannabis.
She said: "I am still going to medicate with cannabis. This court is not fit for purpose and I am taking up an appeal and putting in a complaint about the fact I was not allowed to have a defence. The law and justice do not exist in this country any more."
Tarbam has for many years campaigned for the legalisation of cannabis, appearing on television shows as well as writing a book entitled Grandma Eats Cannabis.
At the 2005 general election, she stood unsuccessfully against leader of the House of Commons Peter Hain on a pro-cannabis ticket.
But in May 2004 she was caught with 31 plants and blocks of cannabis worth £850 at her home which the former chef used to make casseroles and curries, biscuits, cakes and soups for elderly and infirm people in her area.
She said she used it to relieve the depression she suffered since finding her 14-year-old son Duncan dead in bed in 1975.
She also claimed eating the drug helped her combat aches and pains she suffered in two car crashes.
At that trial Judge David Hodson, Newcastle's senior judge, said he refused to make her a martyr and handed her a six-month jail sentence suspended for two years when she appeared before him in April 2005.
But just five months later, Northumbria Police received a tip-off that she was growing more cannabis.
She was compliant when three officers arrived at her bungalow in her Northumberland village, directing them to a bedroom wardrobe where four plants were being nurtured with light and heat.
She also told them about the jars of cannabis powder in her kitchen, and even confessed her freezer was packed with dope-laced curries, casseroles and ice cream - which the police declined to seize because they did not want to deprive her of food.
The jury of six men and six women came back with unanimous guilty verdicts for the two counts, one of possessing the drug and one of cultivating it.
When asked before her sentence if she feared going to jail, Tabram, who used to run a restaurant in Leith, Edinburgh, said: "Emmeline Pankhurst had to go to prison three times before women got the vote so I am not going to be worried about it."
Tabram could be evicted following her second drug conviction.
She is a tenant of Milecastle Housing Association, which will hold a meeting after she is sentenced to decide what to do next.
The charity has met her several times to discuss her drug use and a spokesman said she was aware she had breached her tenancy agreement.
"Their decision will be taken after sentence and take all issues and aspects into consideration," he said.
- INDEPENDENT
