Liverpool cannabis grower jailed for six years

Paul McAskill growing £200,000-worth of drug on 'industrial scale'

An industrial scale cannabis grower in Liverpool who was wearing gardening gloves when police arrested him was jailed after being caught with £200,000 of the drug.

Paul McAskill, 46, had already served time for growing cannabis plants on a smaller scale in his house and been jailed for six years for importing cocaine into the UK in 1999.

But he was caught for a third time when police raided a property on Edge Lane, Kensington where he was growing 194 cannabis plants.

Joanne Maxwell, prosecuting, told Liverpool Crown Court McAskill was alone in the building and wearing gardening gloves when police caught him coming down the stairs.

She said: "His trousers were wet from the knee down probably as a result of tending the plants the police found in five rooms upstairs.

"Each room contained approximately 40 plants.

"The estimated yield was 10kg which at street value would have been worth between £100,000 and £200,000."

She added: "The Crown's position has always been that the defendant was not acting alone but certainly played a role in this substantial cannabis factory."

The court heard that someone else had rented the property and the landlord had never met McAskill.

Although he gave no comment to police McAskill, of Albion Street, Everton, later pleaded guilty to production of Class B drugs.

A charge of abstracting electricity was ordered to lie on the file after he said someone else bypassed the meter but he was aware it had happened.

Charles Lander, defending, said McAskill had run up a £10,000 cocaine debt to drug dealers after leaving prison in 2011 and his family were being threatened.

He said he agreed to take care of the plants in return for money being taken off his debt.

Mr Lander added: "His role was, as he was caught red-handed, gardening and tending the plants."

The judge, Recorder Alan Conrad QC, said: "You are a mature man in your forties.

"You know the way the courts approach these matters having already committed an offence of a similar nature three years ago and being given a custodial sentence for that.

"You became involved in what was clearly a substantial cannabis factory where 194 cannabis plants were being cultivated in circumstances that show the thought that has gone into this exercise."

He jailed McAskill, whose alias is Paul Day, for three and a half years after giving him a 25% discount for his guilty plea.

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk 20/06/2013