A 68-year-old woman who advocates cooking with cannabis for health reasons was today found guilty of growing and possessing the drug and could now face prison.

However Patricia Tabram - whose brushes with the law over her use of the drug have become a cause celebre for pro-cannabis campaigners - was defiant about the prospect of going to jail.

She said this morning before the jury delivered its verdict at Carlisle crown court that she would be "everyone's granny" in prison and would be treated well, though she was anxious about not having her "medicine" [cannabis].

A jury decided today that Tabram, of Humshaugh, Northumberland, had breached a six-month suspended jail sentence she was given in April 2005 at Newcastle crown court. She received that sentence after being found with cannabis plants and drugs worth £850, which she used to make curries, casseroles, biscuits and soups for local people.
The judge in Newcastle, David Hodson, had declined to make Tabram "a martyr" by jailing her.

Today, Judge Barbara Forrester postponed sentencing until reports could be prepared, but she warned that a custodial sentence was possible. The jury decided that Tabram breached her sentence after police, acting on a tip-off, found four plants growing in a wardrobe at her Humshaugh bungalow in September 2005. They also found powdered cannabis in a jar next to her cooker.

The jury in the la-*test*-('") case heard Tabram's claims that she used cannabis to ease her depression, as well as aches and pains she still suffered from two car crashes.

The jury of six men and six women came back after 15 minutes of deliberations with unanimous guilty verdicts for the two counts, one of possessing the drug and one of cultivating it.

Tabram, who has been defending herself, told the court: "I am old and I am tired, and I am disappointed, not in the result by the jury. I am disappointed in the attitude of the court regarding someone my age with my health problems and the way I deal with it. I just want to go home and get some rest."

During discussions over whether she should be represented by a barrister for the sentencing hearing, Tabram asked the judge what tariff she had in mind.

Judge Forrester said she needed more information and would consider existing psychiatric and probation reports which were prepared after Tabram's Newcastle court case.

"I cannot exclude a custodial sentence because you are in breach of a suspended sentence," the judge said. Before today's proceedings, Tabram, a grandmother of two, said she was not afraid of going to prison.

"I will be with all women in there and they will treat me like a queen. I will be everyone's granny in there. I won't have any medicine, I suppose. I will have to ask my son to bring in my walking stick and neck brace."

The twice-married former chef and teacher said she spent last night having a meal in Newcastle with her son, Colin, and two expert cannabis growers. "We giggled all night," she said.

She described the police who arrested her as "gentlemen" and warmly greeted Tom Moran, prosecuting counsel, as he entered the court.

After her conviction, the pro-cannabis campaigners Lezley Gibson and her husband, Mark, from Alston, Cumbria, said they were devastated for Tabram.

The Gibsons were last year given suspended jail sentences for running a cottage industry which made and posted chocolate bars containing cannabis to multiple sclerosis (MS) patients.

Today, Ms Gibson, who has MS, said of Tabram's conviction: "I cannot believe that juries are so spineless. I hoped that the jury would find her not guilty and that the law might change. The jury has not taken into account the fact that she is ill because the judge did not let them."

It can now be reported that on the second day of Tabram's trial, proceedings were disrupted when she claimed a stash of cannabis she had smuggled into court in her bra had gone missing.

Tabram said three small plastic bags containing the drug which she had left in the locked courtroom overnight had gone missing.

Judge Forrester twice cleared the court for searches to be done, and said she was considering calling in the police to investigate.

However, almost two hours after proceedings were due to begin, Tabram said she had found the drugs - which she intended to produce as evidence - in her handbag.

The jury was unaware of the missing cannabis, as the matter unfolded during legal argument before the trial resumed.