Man jailed for two years following discovery of cannabis factory at Stoke St Michael barn
53-year-old man has been jailed for growing cannabis on a commercial scale in Stoke St Michael after a neighbouring landowner noticed a strange smell coming from a barn he rented.
53-year-old man has been jailed for growing cannabis on a commercial scale in Stoke St Michael after a neighbouring landowner noticed a strange smell coming from a barn he rented.
She told police and officers raided the building and found 67 plants in various stages of development with special heating, lighting and fertiliser. The street value was estimated at £18,500 to £25,000 and it was a repeating crop, Taunton Crown Court was told.
Janice Eagles, prosecuting, said: “He admitted producing it for a buyer. It was clearly a commercial operation. The defendant had the knowledge to produce cuttings and there was no suggestion anyone else was involved in the operation.”
Richard Harrington, of Manor House Road, Glastonbury, who admitted possessing and producing a Class B drug, had taken cannabis to help with sleeping and his instructions to his barrister were said to have been ‘disarmingly frank’.
Joseph Wright, defending, added: “He said he knew what he was doing was wrong and that he could be arrested. He's had some sort of breakdown and was at a very low point and looking for something to do. The structure of growing plants was constructive and he immersed himself in it. He was taking a fatalistic and almost self-destructive course.”
Judge Ewan Ambrose said he had set up a cannabis factory behind a steel door on a farm building in Stoke St Michael. A crop could be harvested in a matter of weeks and could be repeated throughout the year in the artificial environment. “You have been doing it for two years and selling your crop to a single purchaser”, he added.
It was a deliberate defiance of the law and if he had gone to trial the sentence starting point was three and a half years. Receiving credit for his early guilty plea, Harrington was jailed for two years and four months and ordered to pay £120 victim surcharge.
S
Soft Secrets
