NEARLY £40,000 worth of cannabis was found growing in a rented house.
A Rugby man has been remanded in custody and his aunt jailed after a judge heard about their cannabis factory at a house in Thomson Close, Rugby.
Damon Edwards and his aunt Kerrianne Cole had both pleaded guilty to producing cannabis at the house.
Edwards entered his plea at Warwick Crown Court on the basis it was his aunt’s operation, and all he did was top up the electricity payment for her while she was in prison.
But after hearing evidence during a ‘trial of issue,’ that was rejected by Judge Richard Griffith-Jones, who said he was satisfied Edwards had played the leading role in the enterprise.
Judge Griffith-Jones jailed Cole, 40, previously of Ashwood Court, Rugby, for 20 months for her part in the operation, which he classed as being a ‘significant role.’
And Edwards, 30, of Buchanan Road, Rugby, was remanded in custody after the judge agreed, at the request of his solicitor Mark Nicholls, to adjourn his sentencing to a later date.
Prosecutor Alexandra Bull said police raided Edwards’ flat in April last year and found £3,715 in cash, digital scales, and plastic zip bags.
They also found an energy bill for a property in Thomson Close, a prepayment top-up key for the three-bedroom semi, an air filter and some piping, and a leaflet about cannabis-growing.
The police went to the house in Thomson Close, which had been rented by Cole in October 2015 on a six-month lease.
Miss Bull said the landlord had found the curtains drawn and the locks changed.
But officers got in using a key seized from Edwards, and found it had been converted into a cannabis factory, with 69 plants in various stages of growth, plus growing equipment and evidence of a previous harvest.
It was estimated that the plants would have produced cannabis with a street value of up to £39,000.
Miss Bull said a receipt was found in the house – and when the CCTV from the store was checked, it showed Edwards making the purchase.
Edwards said the cash seized at his home was not from drugs, but what was left from the sale of a Transit van.
He claimed he used the zip bags to separate different screws.
And he said the keys, energy bill and top-up key had been left for him by Cole at the home of another aunt.
“Kerrianne had asked me to put the electric on for her. I felt I was in a situation of having a duty of care.
“She said she had some weed there, and she was going to go to prison [for shoplifting offences] and she asked me to put the electric on for her.”
Edwards claimed he had topped up the prepayment key with £100 because he had not wanted to go back again, and then put it into the meter in a cupboard on the outside of the house.
He denied going inside, and said he could not explain how the JD Sports bag and receipt had got inside, but that he had left the bag at the home of his other aunt.
In relation to the air filter, he said a relative had just opened a café and needed a ventilation system – adding the leaflet had come with the fan.
But rejecting Edwards’s explanations, Judge Griffith-Jones said: “I have come to the sure conclusion that Damon Edwards was playing a leading role in this cannabis factory.
“I have found his explanation for each of the items to be incredible, and it becomes even more incredible once one has to take into account the constellation of evidence.”
