A manager at a Liverpool city centre restaurant has been jailed after being caught with a £60,000 cannabis farm.
Police found the large crop of drugs growing in the loft of Rachid Karkach's home during a raid earlier this year. The 31-year-old developed a habit after taking up smoking weed before he was even a teenager.
Liverpool Crown Court heard yesterday, Thursday, that officers executed a search warrant at his address on Rudley Walk in Speke at around 10am on April 5 this year. Nardeen Nemat, prosecuting, said that Karkach was asleep in his bedroom at the time.
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A total of 52 cannabis plants had been growing in his attic. The "professional" setup boasted 13 lighting kits, while the roof had been insulated to keep heat from escaping.
The crop was capable of producing an estimated potential yield of drugs worth between £14,560 and £65,520. Snap bags of cannabis resin were also seized from the living room.
Karkach has three previous for four offences, including two for drug driving and one for possession of cannabis. Olivia Beesley, defending, told the court that her client has lived in the UK for the past 10 years and has been the assistant manager of a restaurant on Bold Street since August last year.
She described him as a "hard worker", but said he had been smoking cannabis since the age of 12 and was spending £40 per day on the class B drug. Ms Beesley added: "He has attempted to stop in the past, but has stumbled.
"He knows smoking too much has affected his mental health. He asks the court to offer him one more chance."
Karkach admitted production of cannabis and abstracting electricity without authority. He was jailed for 18 months and told to pay a victim surcharge, with forfeiture and destruction of the drugs also ordered.
Sentencing, Judge David Hale said: "This was a sophisticated grow. It is way outside of any sort of personal grow."
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