A woman was praised for turning her life around as she appeared in court to be sentenced for dealing cannabis.

Mercedes Summers, 32, previously known as Kyle Macabe, was charged in the wake of a police search of her home in Oxford in December 2019.

Although only finding a modest amount of cannabis, the officers also discovered 23 deal bags – linking her to the supply of the class B drug.

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She had initially denied the allegation but, at a hearing earlier this autumn, pleaded guilty on a basis to being concerned in the supply of cannabis.

She said she had become involved in the trade as a result of a debt owed to those supplying her with drugs.

But the person in the dock was a changed person from the individual arrested in 2019, the court heard. Summers was now in work and, she said from the dock, had ‘completely quit’ smoking cannabis.

“I plan to move forward and better myself,” she added.

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Judge Michael Gledhill KC acknowledged the positive changes she had made and added his hope that a ‘new chapter is opening in your life’.

But he said he had to impose a suspended prison sentence because of the seriousness of dealing cannabis.

Sentencing Summers, of Abingdon Road, Oxford, to 30 weeks imprisonment suspended for 18 months, Judge Gledhill said: “The message has to go out very clearly from this court firstly that cannabis is not just a recreational drug. It’s illegal.

“Secondly, that cannabis causes the most terrible consequences to some users [although] not everybody.”

He added: “It is dangerous, it is a chemical and it is illegal.”