A WOMAN caught in Huddersfield’s biggest-ever undercover drugs operation has been sentenced.
The 32-year-old woman has been given a suspended prison sentence for supplying cocaine to undercover police officers in Huddersfield.
Tracy Cruikshanks, of Hawthorne Terrace, was arrested and charged after she supplied the Class A drug on three occasions to officers working on the streets as part of Operation Greystoke in 2009.
Undercover officers spent months on the operation, targeting dozens of drug dealers all over the Huddersfield and Kirklees area.
Cruikshanks, who has no previous convictions, pleaded guilty to the three drug supply offences and was sentenced to a year in jail.
But Judge Jonathan Rose, who has dealt with around 50 defendants from the same operation, said he was prepared to suspend the prison term for two years.
The judge, sitting at Bradford Crown Court yesterday , described Cruikshanks’ personal circumstances as exceptional and said he had also taken account of her guilty pleas, the fact that she had gone through a detoxification programme and was now working.
Judge Rose said Cruikshanks had a number of significant personal difficulties and had committed the offences after running up her own drug debt to a dealer.
The judge told Cruikshanks that she had come within an ace of losing her liberty, but he said she had made a huge step in coming away from drugs.
But the judge warned her that there were no second chances and if she offended again she would start with the 12-month prison sentence.
The judge said: “I’m giving you an opportunity that few in your position deserve but I think you do deserve this chance.
“If you let me down I promise I will send you to prison the next time we meet”.
As part of the suspended sentence Cruikshanks will have to do 200 hours unpaid work for the community and she will also be subject to supervision for the next two years.
