Police close down Lincoln Gardens cannabis factory
16 August 2011 by Paul Rhoades
Residents on Gloucester Avenue on Scunthorpe's Lincoln Garden's estate woke this morning to a dramatic police raid on a residential property which was suspected of being a cannabis factory.
According to Sgt James Main, (Neighbourhood Sergeant for the area) information pinpointing the factory had been gathered by local Neighbourhood Police Community Support Officers and other members of the local community.
Inside the house police found several rooms had been given over to growing the plants, reportedly at 3 different stages, and another room was being used as a drying room. This suggests that the factory may have been in operation for some time, and could have produced at least one crop.
While no official estimate has been given to the number of plants retrieved from the farm, we can see from the photograph that there were a very large number of plants, clearly not for personal use.
In a statement given to www.VisitScunthorpe.Com this afternoon, James said
"Despite having some officers assisting elsewhere in the Country, the
Neighbourhood teams have continued to patrol all areas offering reassurance and
this is an excellent example of how local knowledge from the PCSO for the area
coupled with good information being given by the community has led to this
successful operation this morning"
Police also confirmed the existence of an escape tunnel going through an outer wall of the house and into the garage to allow any one in the house to escape in the event of a police raid. According to James the escape tunnel failed to help the growers as this morning a man found in the house was taken into custody for questioning.
This would sound like a fairly large operation, which is not unknown in the North Lincolnshire area. Recently raids have been carried out in domestic property at Elsham, a barn near Epworth. In 2008 the largest cannabis farm in the UK (at the time) was found in rented office space at Flixborough, with a crop reportedly worth £4million being grown on the top floor of Belwin house. In the case of the Flixborough farm, the growers had refitted a large open plan office with ventilation and even accommodation facilities as they stayed with the plants as they were grown.
To keep up to date with the activities of Scunthorpe Police B Division, including traffic situations, crime prevention advice and now drugs busts - follow James Main on Twitter - http://twitter.com/SgtJamesMain
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Comments
What a waste of police resources - smoking cannabis is a victimless crime and its production and supply is only lucrative because the government prohibits it. Drugs are not the cause of today's alarming crime rates - drug prohibition is. Most of the harm that comes from drugs is because they are illegal. This is the nanny state protecting us from ourselves and that's not their job. If I'm not free to make my own decisions about what I put in my body then I'm not free at all.
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