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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Dealers jailed
Gordon Rogers Oxford Mail
Wednesday 20 Dec 2006 Four drug dealers running a massive cannabis factory near Abingdon have been sentenced to a total of 26 years in jail. David Stannard, Christopher Bridges, Jason Warrick and a 22-year-old man who cannot be named were all convicted of cultivating cannabis and possessing cannabis with intent to supply. Judge David Morton Jack, sitting at Reading Crown Court, heard that the factory could have produced up to 19 kilos of cannabis - with a street value of up to £106,000. The sophisticated hydroponics factory had been set up in a unit at Manor Farm at Frilford, near Abingdon, and had been running for at least two years before police raided it in January last year, the court heard. Warrick, Bridges and the 22-year-old - who cannot be named because of a court order - were found guilty after a trial. Bridges and the 22-year-old were also convicted of possessing heroin and amphetamines with intent to supply. The 22-year-old, who lives in Reading, was sentenced to seven years. Bridges, 29, of Tilehurst, Reading, was sentenced to eight and a half years. He had set up the electrics for the cannabis factory and had gone back from time to time to help maintain it. The judge told Bridges: "You acted no doubt on the behest of Stannard. You were the electrician and you were essential to the operation." Warrick, 30, of Caversham, Reading, was given two and a half years for his part in the factory operation. Stannard, 36, of Tilehurst, Reading, who had admitted all charges, was jailed for eight years. The court heard that police officers saw him hand over almost 250g of cocaine with a street value of up to £12,000 in the forecourt of a petrol station in Thatcham, Berkshire. Police had been watching him at a house which they later raided and found another 227g of cocaine. Speaking after the sentences were handed out, Det Insp Chris Biddle, of Abingdon CID, said: "The factory was capable of yielding three crops per year. It was a huge, wholesale production." The four men were sentenced on Friday, December 1, but the case could not be reported until now because of another case going through the courts. http://www.oxfordmail.net
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