A ‘naive’ mother and daughter who grew a £29,510 cannabis farm in their cellar have been spared jail.

Police found 33 cannabis plants at the Accrington home of Wendy Pearson, 46, and Cassie Yardley, 21, during a raid last September.

A court heard that the pair, who were both of previous good character, had been pressured into helping with the operation after Yardley became involved in an ‘unpleasant’ relationship.

Judge Graham Knowles QC sentenced both women to eight months imprisonment suspended for a year at Burnley Crown Court.

He said: “There you stand mother and daughter beside each other in the dock of a criminal court. I should think you find it almost as hard to believe as I do.

“You are women living a completely different kind of life to the one that brings you here. What am I to do with you?”

Prosecutor Stephen Parker told the court that police forced entry to Pearson and Yardley’s home on Jacob Street, Accrington, during a raid on September 7, 2012.

Mr Parker said the mother and daughter were found in the living room while two men were discovered in the cellar downstairs along with a ‘sophisticated’ cannabis set-up of 33 plants with transformers and high powered lighting.

The plants would have yielded around 2.3kg of cannabis and 634g was found in a separate drying area.

Mr Parker said: “The whole cellar had been taken over by this production setup.”

The barrister added that the two other men in the house were charged with production but the charges were later dropped.

Yardley and Pearson both pleaded guilty to cannabis production. Pearson also admitted abstracting electricity.

Patrick Buckley, for Pearson, said the mum is a ‘frail and fragile’ vulnerable woman who lives a solitary existence, has never smoked cannabis and has found court a daunting experience.

He said Wendy Pearson would not have the knowledge and ability to set up and establish a commercial cannabis farm.

Paul Hodgkinson, defending Yardley, said she had ‘foolishly'’become involved in a short-lived ‘unpleasant’ relationship with a man who involved her in the cannabis operation.

He said: “At the time she didn’t feel she had a choice.”

He said hard-working Yardley wants to join the armed services looking after horses and a custodial sentence due to her ‘terrible mistake’ would ruin those chances.