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Spared jail, the teaching assistant who gave children cannabis so they wouldn't go to dealers
Last updated at 00:52am on 10.10.07
Nicola Cooper: spared jail
A teaching assistant who gave her children cannabis was spared jail yesterday after a judge heard she did it to stop them visiting street dealers.
Nicola Cooper, 43, intervened when she learned her teenage son and daughter had experimented with the drug.
She feared they would be lured into trying harder drugs and become involved in crime.
When police raided her home they found 116 grams of cannabis resin, worth £200.
Cooper could have been jailed but a district judge ordered her to 200 hours' community work after hearing about her good character.
She had already quit her job following her arrest earlier this year.
Speaking after the hearing, Cooper insisted she had "done the right thing" to keep her children away from dealers.
But she added: "I don't want my children involved in it any more.
"I think I was very lucky today. I could have been given a much heavier sentence or even jailed.
"The kids would just come down and say, 'Do you mind if we pinch a little smoke because we fancy one?'
"I regret breaking the law and feel sorry for that.
"Some people give their children alcohol and cigarettes at an early age - but I gave mine cannabis."
Cooper said the cannabis police found in her house had been for her own use and described herself and her partner of 25 years, engineering company director Ian Leppard, 51, as "liberal parents".
She insisted smoking cannabis had not harmed her daughter, Emily, 18, who is studying for A-levels, and her son, Jacob, 20, who is working.
Bury St Edmunds Magistrates heard that Cooper, who had been a support assistant at Barrow Primary School in Suffolk for four years, had used cannabis herself "on and off" since she was 18.
She started giving the drug to her daughter when she was 16 and son when he was 18 but insisted she only allowed them to use it occasionally.
On June 16, police, acting on "intelligence", presented her with a warrant to search her home in Ixworth, near Bury St Edmunds, and she led them to where she stashed the drug. At a hearing last month, she admitted possessing cannabis with intent to supply and offering to supply the drug.
Kevin McCarthy, defending, said it was "ironic" that Cooper had acted to keep her children away from dealers.
"The reason for the supply was to keep those cherished children away from the drug culture," he said.
The court received letters of support for Cooper, including one from a GP and another from a retired detective who spent 32 years with Suffolk police.
A note from Barrow Primary head John Gibson said she had been a "valuable member of staff".
District Judge David Cooper accepted Cooper had been "a good teacher" but accused her of "sheer arrogance" in acting as if the law did not apply to her.
"Until the law is changed, you must abide by it," he said. "It's particularly important for a teacher to ensure that she does."
A Suffolk County Council spokesman said: "She has resigned her post and that is the end of it. It is a matter of concern to the school and the council if anyone breaks the law when it has relevance to their jobs."
Cooper, a former nursery nurse, nanny and ceramics painter, added after the case that while she had smoked cannabis since her teens, she had often gone without it for long periods.
"I don't want to touch it again," she said.
"The whole point was that it was a relaxing thing. But there is nothing relaxing about it if you think the police are going to burst into your home at any moment."
Her partner Mr Leppard said: "When we found out our kids were smoking, we sat down as a family to discuss it.
"We didn't want them to hide it but told them that it was not big or clever and they should be responsible.
"We didn't want them getting involved in anything else or the underground drug culture. We just told them to stay at home and keep it to themselves.
"Cannabis was something we just had in the house. We have no idea how the police became involved."
Martin Barnes, chief executive of the charity Drugscope, said: "Although it is understandable that parents will want to protect children from dealers, we would strongly advise against supplying the drugs - not least because it does not address the drug use and the potential harm."
Reader views (6)
Either drugs are legal or they are illegal. If they are illegal then the Judge made the completely wrong decision in this case and should be ashamed. Nobody should be allowed to give their kids drugs. As far as the dealers are concerned, the police should be tracking them down so they can't ply their poisonous trade. Nobody should get away with giving their kids drugs! It will tell every other parent they can do the same and get away with it. I guarantee that many kids will all be thinking it's alright to smoke dope at home after this judgement. Saturday night will be a night smoking cannibis and watching telly! What idiots some of our judges are! Do they actually live in the real world!
- Wooram, Alicante, Spain
Well done to this woman for stopping her children hanging around with bad people.
- Rick , Hackney, London
Children of that age are always going to experminet, no matter how well brought up they are. Nicola Cooper realised that and took action to keep them from going to drug dealers.
I notice that neither the court, or the police, or even (especially) the politicians, despite being quite happy to punish her, have not been able to offer a better solution.
We give up some of our freedoms and in return the Government and its institutions promise us protection, law and order. They constantly fail to deliver on this, and we are left unable to take action to look after ourselves.
Same thing with self defence, the police cannot keep the streets safe, but we are liable for punishment if we "take the law into our own hands."
- Tim, London
This woman should be applauded for the responsible way she dealt with the situation, if the kids had gone to street dealers they could have been tempted to go for something stronger, a bit of resin never hurt anyone, and that is scientific fact!
- Daveb, London
This judgment sends completely the wrong message. I guarantee that if a father had acted in this way he would have gone to jail.
- Philip, London, England
"Cannabis was something we just had in the house." What, did it just grow of its own accord, or maybe it was beamed down from the Enterprise? The arrogance of this woman is breathtaking.
- Paul, London
