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A SERVING soldier’s Tamworth home was destroyed when the man renting it turned it into a cannabis factory.
As well as by-passing the electricity supply, the cowboy tenant knocked a hole in the ceiling to establish the farm in one of the bedrooms.
When police arrived at the Dordon house, they uncovered that the crop worth thousands had just been harvested, a judge at Warwick Crown Court heard.
Tenant Marc Healy pleaded guilty to producing cannabis, causing damage and abstracting electricity on the basis that the crop was all for his own use.
But that was rejected by Recorder Martin Jackson who jailed Healy (29) of Telford Road, Coton Green, for a total of 12 months.
Prosecutor Lal Amarasignhe said that soldier Scott Brown is in the armed forces, and rented out his home in Watling Street, Dordon, so that his family could live closer to his base in Rippon.
Last year the house was rented by Healy, but in November the police went to the address following a report from a neighbour of a suspected burglary.
When they arrived the house was unoccupied but officers found a window had been smashed so climbed inside to check the property.
In one of the upstairs bedrooms they found a large growing tent, which filled the room, and contained a cannabis crop that had been cut down and was drying.
The electricity meter had been by-passed to power the growing lights and fans and a hole had been cut in the ceiling to aid ventilation.
Gloves and electronic scales were also discovered at the property.
The crop had been growing in 24 pots and the harvest weighed a total of 4.2 kilos.
The court heard how the harvest would have a potential value of up to £42,000 but Recorder Martin Jackson added that it would not have all been usable.
He suggested that based on the accepted amount of good quality cannabis per plant, the usable quantity would have been about one kilo, worth £10,000 in £10 deals.
Upon arrest, Healy, who was using another room as a bedroom, said he had rented the house and could not afford to buy cannabis so had got the equipment and paid someone else to install it.
Mr Amarasinghe said Healy’s operation had left Mr Brown out of pocket by more than £3,500 including the cost of repairing the ceiling, unpaid council tax, lost rent and travelling backwards and forwards to the house.
The court heard how it had also caused inconvenience to himself and to his parents, who had also had to go to the house when he was unable to.
Peter Hemming, defending, said: “Mr Healy accepts fully that it is his production. But because 4.2 kilos have been seized does not mean that is the yield.”
He said Healy had difficulties with heroin until about six years ago and is still on a Methadone script.
“His consumption of cannabis was costing him £35-40 a day. The reason he did what he did was for financial reasons, the amount the habit was costing him.”
Recorder Jackson said: “This strikes me as being a very sophisticated set-up. This is not just somebody growing a few plants in their back yard or greenhouse.
“It seems to me very much that it was something capable of producing amounts not just for personal consumption but for commercial use.”
Mr Hemming responded: “He maintains the cannabis was produced for his own use, but like triffids the plants continued to grow and grow. Out of naivety he had grown more than required and he was ceasing after this crop because of the amount he had produced.”
Jailing Healy, Recorder Jackson said: “You were the one who organised this cultivation of cannabis, and you knew exactly what the scale of it was.
“It was clearly a sophisticated operation and you went to a lot of trouble setting it up.
“I am told this crop was for your own use, but by my reckoning the actual usable yield would have been approximately 1,000 grams.
“That can raise £3,200 if sold en-bloc, and very much more if sold in smaller deals.
“I reject the suggestion that this was a crop being grown solely for personal use. I do not believe for one minute it came as a surprise to you how much it was producing.
“This is an offence which was committed quite deliberately.
“Mr and Mrs Brown have been left with the violation of their home. For someone in the armed forces, who has served his country in Afghanistan three times, to find his home treated like this must have been devastating.”
Serving soldier's Tamworth home turned into cannabis farm by cowboy tenant
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