A drug-dealing mum has been ordered to pay back nearly £50,000 she won on a scratch card after she was jailed for running operations to supply cocaine.
Elaine Hindley, 42, of Shelmore Drive, Toxteth, ran the supply operation to fund her own cocaine habit.
She was discovered when police smelt cannabis after stopping her Ford Focus as she drove with her 13-year-old daughter in April 2020
Hindley was jailed for 12 months in July last year, but before she was locked up she won a half share of a £300,000 scratch card, the LiverpoolEcho reports.
The mum, who has since been released from prison early, appeared at Liverpool Crown Court again on Tuesday for a proceeds of crime hearing, where she was ordered pay back £49,550 from her cash winnings.
Christopher Hopkins, prosecuting, said it was agreed she had benefited by £49,550 from her drug operation and has realisable assets in the same amount.
The judge, Recorder Tim Harrington ordered Hindley to hand over the money within a month or face eight months imprisonment.
Following her arrest nearly two years ago, an extensive search of her car found numerous sealable pots and police obtained a warrant to search her home address.
In the hallway of her property they recovered a large holdall which had just under two kilos worth of female flowering cannabis heads.
The drug was in a variety of size bags and had a total street value of £28,000.
Officers also recovered dealer tick lists and paraphernalia including sealable pots and scales.
They additionally found £5,381 in cash and a receipt for a Cartier watch.
Hindley, who has a foundation degree in stage make-up, has previous convictions for possessing cannabis and drug driving.
Her lawyer Ken Heckle said she won money with the scratch card “by a quirk of fate”.
She won £300,000, shared in half with another person, a few weeks before the sentencing hearing.
He said that although she had not been dealing from the car when she was stopped and the sealable pots were empty, it was accepted that her two young children “had been exposed to or come across the nature of what she was doing".
