Source: This Is Bradford

Section: News

Date: 24 Mar 2001

CANNABIS GROWER MAY GO ABROAD

A man who grew cannabis because he claimed the drug helped relieve his depression may now go abroad to grow it, a court was told.

Phillip Lockwood, 43, said during his trial last month that cannabis helped him calm down and restored his self-respect.

He had denied a charge of producing a controlled drug on the unusual grounds of necessity due to his medical condition but the jury at Bradford Crown Court found him guilty.

It was revealed during a brief hearing yesterday that he felt the only alternative for him would possibly be to leave the UK and go "to another place where the use of cannabis is not treated in the same way as it is

in this country."

Lockwood, who admitted a charge of extracting electricity, was put on probation for 12 months.

After the case, he said he intended to go to either Belgium or Holland to grow the drug.

The trial had heard how police found cannabis plants at Lockwood's home in Back Charles Street, Brighouse, in December 1999.