Fife man jailed for turning house into cannabis plantation
A Inverkeithing man has been jailed after turning a house into a cannabis farm.
Liam Burnett, who had run up drug debts, used the whole of the property in Inverkeithing to grow 55 plants.
The crime came to light when a Scottish Power employee visited the house.
Burnett (30,) of Hillfield Road, appeared for sentencing at Dunfermline Sheriff Court.
He previously admitted that between 2nd October 2017 and 2nd January last year, at Struan Drive, Inverkeithing, he produced a controlled drug, cannabis.
Depute fiscal Jade Doig told the court that a Scottish Power worker had gone to the property on 2nd January.
There appeared to be no-one inside but he could detect a strong smell of cannabis and there was steel wire on the windows keeping them closed.
Police were contacted and officers who attended found the back door was open.
An officer and the Scottish Power employee entered the house. “They found the whole flat had been converted into a cannabis plantation with two areas of growing plants,” said the depute.
The property was secured and the next day, police returned there with a forensics officer.
There was no furniture in the property which contained 55 cannabis plants in the living room and bedroom.
A resident in the street identified Burnett as someone who he had seen coming to the property regularly.
Burnett’s finger prints and DNA were found in the house.
The depute said the potential value of the plants was £12,000 to £15,000.
Sheriff Charles MacNair told Burnett, “This drug enterprise was of a significant scale. You had turned the whole house into a cannabis plantation. You had modified the house to deal with that.”
He said the value of plants involved was only a snapshot of the day when the raid was carried out and not the whole period of the crime.
“I take into account you were not the prime mover behind this but you were working to pay off a drug debt,” added the sheriff.
He jailed Burnett for nine months.
