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Saturday, July 31, 2010

A TRAINEE electrician who sublet an industrial unit in Bristol to an acquaintance who set up a
140,000-a-year cannabis factory inside, walked out of court with a suspended prison sentence.

Behind a false wall in Adam Lancaster's industrial unit in Easton, thrived 355 cannabis plants that could have yielded 19kg of the prohibited drug with a street value of
140,000.

Police swooped on the site and discovered the professional enterprise, complete with special lights, fans and transformers.

Lancaster's fingerprints were also lifted.


However, the 33-year-old, of Alton Road, Horfield, denied producing the drug himself but admitted to permitting his premises to be used for the production of cannabis.

His pleas were accepted and he was given a 40-week prison sentence, suspended for 18 months. He was also ordered to carry out 180 hours of unpaid work.

Mary Cowe, prosecuting at Bristol Crown Court, said police discovered the cannabis factory in the rented industrial unit in Jubilee Road, Easton, on October 28 last year.

She said officers found the unit had ben partitioned off and behind a wall were two small tents containing 202 cannabis saplings, nine mature plants and 144 other mature plants that had been weeded out so that the potent female plants remained.

Ms Cowe said the operation included special lighting, fans, filters and transformers.

She said Lancaster's fingerprints had been found on some of the transformers. In police interview, Lancaster said he had sublet the unit and later admitted that he had known what was being grown there.

He said his finger prints had been on the transformers because he had helped to carry them in, but at that point had not known how big the operation was going to be.

Catherine Spedding, defending, said her client had been suffering from anxiety and depression last year, brought on by the break up of a long-term relationship, which led him to offend.

She said the former lorry driver, who is now completing his training to become an electrician, had also been having financial difficulties.

She told the court he had not at first known what his unit was going to be used for and when he did find out felt under pressure to allow the operation to continue. Handing Lancaster a suspended prison sentence, Judge William Hart said: "You've a very limited, and as far as today is concerned, irrelevant criminal record. You pleaded guilty to permitting the production of cannabis at premises you controlled. The basis is you continued to sublet the premises knowing that the tenant was growing cannabis there, it was discovered on a fairly professional and substantial scale.

"There were 355 plants in total. The estimated yield was 19kg. That was thwarted by intervention of the police. This was quite out of character for you. The case is so serious that only a custodial sentence is appropriate, but it's one I can suspend."

AC...

Bongme