Jessica Schuurmans-Stekhoven: Wedding function worker in court for Tamborine drug bust
A 31-year-old Tamborine wedding function worker who allegedly let her ex-boyfriend set up a “sophisticated” hydroponic drug lab in her spare room says she’s turned her life around and stopped using drugs.
Logan
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A 31-year-old Tamborine wedding function worker who allegedly let her ex-boyfriend set up a “sophisticated” hydroponic drug lab in her spare room says she’s turned her life around and stopped using drugs.
Jessica Ann Schuurmans-Stekhoven, 31, pleaded guilty in district court at Beenleigh to a count of permitting the use of a place for producing dangerous drugs between August 29, 2019, and October 30, 2019.
The court heard she and her ex-partner Rhys Hancock were subject to a search warrant at her residence in Beenleigh on October 29, 2019.
Police found a total of 26 cannabis plants weighing 1.23 kilograms and also 1.22 kilograms of cannabis was also found throughout the house.
Police uncovered a “sophisticated” hydroponic set-up in one of the bedrooms with two grow tents, lights, construction fans, drying racks and various chemicals.
There was also another room that contained a hydroponic set-up as well but it was not active.
Police also found traces of the psychedelic drug DMT on glassware in the house.
Schuurmans-Stekhoven told police she was aware of the set-up throughout both rooms in her home.
The court heard she had a three-page criminal history including three charges for possessing dangerous drugs from 2015 and 2016.
Her lawyer told the court she had systemic problems with drugs but had since stopped using.
“The circumstances of the offending are really the result of a consequence of bad relationships and bad decision making,” he said.
He told the court the woman’s ex-partner Rhys Hancock had been a “violent man.”
“That gives you some context as to how the permission if I can call it that, came to be that she has let her house to be used in the way it was,” he said.
“It reduces in my submission the moral culpability of my client.”
Schuurmans-Stekhoven was also charged with possessing drug utensils including a bong, glass pipes, scales and a grinder on October 29, 2019.
She was ordered to complete 100 hours of community service within a 12 month period. No conviction was recorded.
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