A cannabis farmer who claimed he was being used as a “slave” has been jailed after police found him growing “industrial” quantities of the drug in a “booby-trapped” former court building.
Ilidion Brahaj, 20, was one of four suspects who fled via a fire door when officers executed the warrant in Runcorn on November 25 last year. Patrick Gartland, prosecuting at Chester Crown Court on Friday, said that once inside the abandoned former Runcorn Magistrates’ Court building, police found a cannabis farm spread across seven zones over three floors with 1,022 plants in total in various states of processing such as growing or drying.
Officers spotted four males “running from a fire door”, and gave chase onto Northway where they caught and arrested Brahaj. The other three males vanished from sight and evaded arrest.
