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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Warsop cannabis grower spared jail for sake of children
Nottingham Post Tuesday 17 Jul 2012 A FATHER-OF-THREE who grew cannabis in his family home has been spared prison – for the sake of his children. Cannabis addict Christopher Fisher faced jail yesterday after he turned the family's loft into a cannabis garden. Judge Tony Mitchell said he presented to the court a "dilemma" because the starting sentence was two years in jail. But he held back when he heard how the defendant's three children and his partner suffer from learning difficulties, and all depend on him. The judge imposed a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, after Fisher admitted producing cannabis and possessing it with intent to supply. However, Judge Mitchell warned him: "This is your last chance. Take it or you are an utter fool. Step out of line and smoke your spliff and just remember – you could be locking yourself up in prison for 12 months if any offence involving drugs comes before the courts involving you." Fisher had devised a sophisticated growing area in his loft in Laurel Avenue, Church Warsop, with specialist lighting and sheeting to carefully nurture 20 plants. If harvested, the one-kilogram yield could have been worth £10,000. But police stopped the enterprise when they searched the house and seized the plants. They found a mobile phone containing text messages that referred to the sale of cannabis and scales inside the house still had traces of the drug on them. Fisher, 33, was arrested and interviewed, Nottingham Crown Court heard. "He accepted this was his third cannabis grow," said Paul Stimson, prosecuting. "He clearly spent a great deal of money setting up the area [where] the cannabis was cultivated." Dean Bower said, in mitigation, that Fisher's first grow had been a couple of plants and, his second had only amounted to five plants. "He was using cannabis," he told the court. "The cannabis he was growing, some of it would have been smoked by him, and the surplus would have been passed on to others as the text messages indicate. "The level of cannabis dealing is low level." Fisher had "tried hard to conquer his addiction", he added. Judge Mitchell said it was due to the effect and consequences on his children that he was not sending him to prison. Fisher's punishment includes 12 months of supervision from the Probation Service and 180 hours of unpaid work. http://www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/Warsop-cannabis-grower-spared-jail-sake-children/story-16548027-detail/story.html
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