An Albanian man was given a suspended jail sentence after police found over 500 cannabis plants worth more than £380,000 at a three storey house in Gainsborough.
Olsi Ferhati, 29, was arrested on February 16 after officers raided the home in Hotspur Road.
Lincoln Crown Court heard Ferhati had no role in setting up the cannabis farm but was at the property to crop some of the plants.
Edna Leonard, prosecuting, said officers found three growing rooms in the house and a nursery for seedlings in a cupboard under the stairs.
The court heard 62 mature cannabis plants were discovered in the dining room.
Miss Leonard told the court: “It was sophisticated in that there was artificial lighting, the electricity metre had been bypassed and the water supply was from the bathroom.”
A further 55 cannabis plants were found in an upstairs bedroom, along with 118 mature plants in the attic and 333 cannabis seedlings under the stairs.
Police drugs experts estimated the crop had a total possible street value of between £381,000 and £636,000 depending on how it was sold.
Ferhati was arrested, but during police interview said he had no role in setting up the cannabis farm or producing the drug.
Charges against a second Albanian man found at the property were dropped after it was discovered he was a victim of modern slavery.
Ferhati insisted he had only gone to the property to harvest 30 plants and was unaware that it was a much bigger operation.
Howard Ewing, mitigating, told the court Ferhati had no previous convictions and only became involved after losing his job due to the pandemic.
“This behaviour was totally out of character,” Mr Ewing added.
Mr Ewing said Ferhati was normally hardworking but found himself living in Gainsborough with a number of other Albanian men after leaving his wife and young child in London.
Ferhati, previously of Hotspur Road, Gainsborough, admitted a single charge of being concerned in the production of cannabis.
He was sentenced to four months imprisonment suspended for two years.
Passing sentence Judge Catarina Sjolin-Knight said: “This was a professional operation designed to produce a rolling harvest.”
But the judge told Ferhati: “I accept you did not know the scale of the operation.”
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A 38-year-old man from a North Lincolnshire village charged with murder will face an eight-day trial later this year.
Emergency services were called at 4.23am on Saturday, July 2 to reports that a man was seriously injured on South Parade in central Doncaster.
The 28-year-old victim was taken to hospital but was sadly pronounced dead a short time later.
A post-mortem examination found that he died of injuries to his head, chest and abdomen.
Formal identification of the victim is yet to take place, South Yorkshire Police said earlier this week.
Steven Ling, 38, of Park Drain, Westwoodside in North Lincolnshire, has been charged with murder and was remanded in custody to appear at Doncaster Magistrates Court on Monday, July 4.
Ling later appeared at Sheffield Crown Court on Tuesday, July 5 for a plea and trial preparation hearing.
No pleas were entered during the hearing, but an eight-day trial was set for November 28, 2022. Ling has now been remanded into custody until the next hearing.
The Lincolnite went on a ride-along with a Lincolnshire Police officer from the force’s Roads Policing Unit (RPU), which aims to disrupt criminals’ use of the roads and reduce the number of serious and fatal accidents.
The team will support the county response including local policing, neighbourhood policing and criminal investigation too.
Operations first began in Grantham in January this year and started in Louth earlier this week with a sergeant and nine PCs based in both locations.
The Lincolnite went out on a ride-along with PC Rich Precious from Lincolnshire Police’s Roads Policing Unit. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
PC Rich Precious has been a police officer for 22 years after joining the force in 2000 and he recently rejoined the Roads Policing Unit, working out of Louth.
PC Precious, who also previously worked as a family liaison officer for road deaths for 16 years, took The Lincolnite out in his police car to the A1 up to Colsteworth and then back to Grantham. He described that particular area as “one of the main arterial routes that goes through Lincolnshire”.
PC Rich Precious driving down the A1 up to Colsterworth. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Speaking about the new Roads Policing Unit, he said: “It’s intelligence led policing, it’s targeted policing in areas that have been underrepresented in terms of police presence, on the roads certainly, over a number of years.
“We’re hoping that the development of this unit will help address that balance, and look towards using the ANPR system to prevent criminals’ use of the road, and to identify key areas or routes where there’s a high percentage of people killed or seriously injured on the road, what we commonly refer to as KSI.
PC Precious is helping to keep the roads safer in Lincolnshire. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
When asked if he thinks the new team will help reduce the number of serious and fatal accidents in the county, he added: “That’s what the the unit designed for. Sadly, in Lincolnshire our road network does seem to incur a number of those KSI accidents year on year, and we need to reduce that.
“I’ve worked additionally in my roles as a family liaison officer on road death for 16 years, so I’ve seen first hand the impact that road death has on families and victims families.
“I know it’s important that we try and reduce those because, it’s very sad to see how a fatal road traffic collision can affect a family and the victims of that family.”
Marc Gee, Inspector for Lincolnshire Police’s Roads Policing Unit. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Marc Gee, Inspector for the Roads Policing Unit, told The Lincolnite: “Every day there will be officers on duty from both teams and they’ll cover the whole county or the county’s roads.
“Eventually, we’ll have nine police cars and we’ve got six motorbikes. We’ll be utilising them with as many officers as we can every day basically to make our roads safer and enforce against the criminals who feel like it’s okay to come into the county and use our road for criminal purposes.”
Lincolnshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner Marc Jones at the launch of the force’s Roads Policing Unit. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
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