A SINGLE mum who grew cannabis for her teenaged son to smoke at home has escaped jail - after telling a judge she did it to stop him buying from dangerous dealers on the street.

Housekeeper Sandra Humphrey, 28 - who went on to make £6,000 profit for herself from her illegal drug cultivation - said she felt it was better to supply her son David in the safety of his own home.

She used equipment she already had for keeping tortoises to cultivate her cannabis crops.

Sentencing Humphrey to nine months imprisonment suspended for two years, Judge Jamie Tabor QC told her on Wednesday: "I find it hard to believe that you were only growing cannabis so that your son didn't have to go elsewhere - but, for the purposes of today, I accept it."

Humphrey was also ordered to do 250 hours unpaid work for the community. She will have a large amount of her assets and cash seized under the Proceeds of Crime Act once a police investigation into her finances is complete.

Stephen Dent, defending, told Gloucester Crown Court: "Mrs Humphrey's son David, who was 15 at time, began to smoke cannabis and she took the view that rather than have him mix with undesirable and dangerous people she should grow some cannabis for him.

"She kept tortoises and would grow their food under lights - so she already had the system in place.

"She managed to grow three crops in all - much more than she needed.

"It wasn't done originally to make money because she had been told that not many of the plants would survive. But due to her cultivating skills all but one survived.

"She really believed she wasn't committing that serious an offence. She was growing it for her son when he still used it and when he stopped using it, she stopped cultivating it.

"That was some months before the police arrived.

"She has no previous convictions, has been a model citizen, working hard as a cleaner and a housekeeper. She deserves credit for her past life."

Humphrey had only begun to sell to friends and family because she had such an excess on her hands, he added.

Proseutor Julian Kesner said that police raided Humphrey's home in Stroud, Glos on October 22nd 2005 and found at total of 235g of cannabis stashed around the house along with £3,000 in a cashbox in the bedroom.

They also found the remains of the hydroponic growing system, which had been decommissioned.

Freeing Humphrey, Judge Jamie Tabor QC told her: "I sentence you on the basis that you were producing smallish amounts of cannabis over a three year period, making roughly £6,000 in total in criminal money.

"You are said to have green fingers - that must be true because you appear to have had an unusually high success rate.

"If people are making money out of growing cannabis there are nearly always other criminal elements around and about.

"I find it hard to believe that you were only growing cannabis so that your son didn't have to go elsewhere but for the purposes for today I accept it.

"There is plainly another side to you - you are well-educated and you have done well to have brought up a young man all by yourself.

"You have been doing fairly menial work - that is not what one would expect from a full-on professional dealer.

"I think that you have in fact lead a rather sad life and that you got drawn in in a way that you now regret.

"I hope I do not see you at this court again and I doubt I will."

Humphrey, of Gannicox Road, Stroud pleaded guilty to acquiring criminal property - the £6,000 cash and to producing and supplying cannabis - a Class C drug - between April 1 2003 and October 24 2005.

She refused to comment as she left court.