Company director had £18,000 cannabis stash in garage
A COMPANY director was jailed for two years yesterday and his wife placed under supervision after an £18,000 haul of cannabis was found in their garage.
A COMPANY director was jailed for two years yesterday and his wife placed under supervision after an £18,000 haul of cannabis was found in their garage.
Anthony McAteer, 53, and his wife Isobel, 52, were held by police after a raid at their £250,000 home in Uddingston, Lanarkshire.
The couple claimed the drugs had been removed from their son Michael's flat in the village in an effort to keep him out of trouble.
McAteer told Hamilton Sheriff Court the 27-year-old had turned into a "zombie" and made his family's life hell after developing an addiction to cannabis.
The construction company boss had even made plans to grow cannabis in his garage in an attempt to control Michael's drug use.
However, he and his wife were arrested by police in July 2012 when he moved the cannabis from Michael's flat into their garage.
They had both denied producing and supplying cannabis at their home, but a jury took less than one hour to convict them of supplying the class B drug.
But the charge they produced cannabis had been dropped.
Lawyer Stephen MacBride said: "My client Mr McAteer accepts full responsibility for his actions. He decided to deal with a problem that his son was having, and thought that by keeping it in house he could sort it himself.
"It was clearly his responsibility how the situation developed from there and his alone, this has affected him and his family.
"He always knew a jury would decide his guilt in this matter and it wasn't until the verdict that he realised what he had done.
"I would ask by a margin that a community based disposal is considered as opposed to a custodial sentence recommended in the social work report."
http://www.express.co.uk 15/06/2014
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