Cannabis factory man earned thousands, court told

THE man behind a small but relatively sophisticated cannabis factory, which earned him several thousand of pounds a year, will not go to prison.

Matthew Keating, 36, was arrested back in November following reports of the smell of cannabis coming from his flat on Lawford Road.

But at Warwick Crown Court this week the 36-year-old was given an eight month prison term suspended for 18 months, with 18 months supervision and conditions that he takes part in drug rehabilitation and offending behaviour programmes.

The former engineering student pleading guilty to producing cannabis and also admitted possessing the class A drug Methadone.

When police searched the flat they found three growing tents in a bedroom with a total of 13 cannabis plants in them.

They were being grown in fertiliser with the aid of high-intensity lights and fans - a set-up estimated at being capable of producing three crops a year which would have provided a turnover of around £24,000 a year, said prosecutor Andrew Wilkins.

In a cupboard under the stairs the officers found 489 grams of cannabis leaf material which could not be used but was indicative of a previous crop while 188 grams of harvested skunk cannabis worth £1,900 was found – some of which he had thrown into the toilet ready to be flushed away as the police entered, added Mr Wilkins.

There were also notebooks containing his calculations of what his potential profit from the crop would be, which he put at £7,500 along with sets of scales, a baseball bat and a loaded BB gun.

A number of text messages on his phone from people asking for cannabis showed he had an expanding circle of people’ who knew he was in the business of supplying cannabis, but there was no evidence of street dealing to strangers.

Mr Wilkins, who said the police also found a bottle of the heroin substitute Methadone which had been prescribed to someone else, said Keating had previous convictions for dishonesty and possessing drugs.

David Everett, defending, said Keating, who had been a lifeguard at a sports centre, began using hard drugs in 1997 and continued for about seven years.

He then came off heroin and went onto Methadone, but turned more and more to cannabis when he began suffering from depression after losing a factory job in 2011 because of the recession.

"He has always made it clear that his offending started as a result of him taking over cannabis-growing from someone else. He started off to support his own habit, but he was in a circle of friends and others wanted some, and he supplied them," Mr Everett added.

Judge Sylvia de Bertodano told him: "Supplying drugs, whatever the class, ruins lives and is at the root of other crime."

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