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UK: Drug grower whose crop caught fire is sent to jail

Julia Sutton

Bedfordshire On Sunday

Sunday 05 Aug 2012

A driving instructor whose cannabis factory was discovered after a fire ripped through the house he was renting has been locked up for 22 months.

Clive Latouche, 52, was caught when a blaze took hold of the property on December 23 last year.

When fire crews arrived at the scene in Sandy Road, Potton, smoke was pouring out of the building and it was discovered that the electricity meter had been by-passed.

At Luton Crown Court on July 27, Latouche, from Morell Close, Barnet pleaded guilty to cultivating cannabis, but claimed that he was growing the drug only for his personal use.

After hearing evidence Judge Michael Baker QC ruled against him saying he had set up a 'sophisticated operation' in which 111 plants were found.

Latouche told the court he expected to grow enough for the next few months adding: "I wasn't just going to smoke them. In Jamaica we use the leaves to make tea."

He said he spent two or three nights a week at the address, spending the rest of the time at his girlfriend's home in North London. He said he wanted to save on the £200 to £300 a week he spent buying the drug.

Prosecutor Merril Hughes told him: "If that amount of cannabis was for your own personal use as a driving instructor you would have been completely stoned." But he objected saying his tolerance was 'extremely high'.

He said an estimate that the crop would have yielded between two and three kilos of cannabis worth between £7,000 and £30,000 was an 'extrapolation'.

http://www.bedfordshire-news.co.uk/News/Drug-grower-whose-crop-caught-fire-is-sent-to-jail-03082012.htm

 

 

 

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