Man is jailed after cannabis farm find

A man who set up a cannabis farm at a Wigan house has been jailed for two years.
The cannabis farmThe cannabis farm
The cannabis farm

Maximillian Surrey, 27, from Houghton Street, Southport, had already pleaded guilty to cultivating hundreds of plants from an address in Moss Road, Billinge, when he appeared before Wigan and Leigh magistrates.

Because of the seriousness of the offence, the justices had sent him to Bolton Crown Court to be dealt with because a judge has greater sentencing powers.

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The hearing was told that police were called to Moss Road after a neighbour reported someone breaking in, and there the officers found a sophisticated drug cultivation set-up.

They discovered cannabis plants growing in individual pots in two upstairs bedrooms, along with numerous heat lamps, fans and air extraction systems.

The walls, floors and doors of the rooms had been lined with plastic sheeting.

Two further upstairs rooms were rigged up in a similar manner.

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No plants were growing in these rooms but empty pots suggested recently harvested plants. The potential yield of the 70kg cannabis cultivation was estimated at a value of between £5,440 and £7,050 at street level.

Surrey was interviewed by police and admitted that it was he who had been growing the cannabis.

He told officers that he was sub-letting the property and was running the illegal farm to pay off an existing drug debt. At court he pleaded guilty to the cultivation of a class B substance, namely cannabis, and was handed a two-year custodial sentence.