A sushi restaurant worker turned his entire flat into a £90,000 cannabis farm then claimed the "extraordinary" amount of drugs was for personal use.
Mark Green appeared before Liverpool Crown Court for sentence today, Thursday, after admitting production of cannabis. Carmel Wilde, prosecuting, described how police raided his apartment on Feltwood Close in West Derby on January 6.
Inside, officers discovered the whole of the unit had been given over to a grow with a potential yield of between £20,000 and £90,000 of class B drugs. No bed was found in the flat and there was no food in the fridge.
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This was because Green had not been living in the social housing property, instead "sofa surfing" at friends' houses. The tenant initially claimed the cannabis was intended for his own use, but later conceded it was a "commercial operation" for onward supply.
Matthew O'Neill, defending, told the court the cannabis user remained grieving following the deaths of his mum and sister. He added: "His mother and sister were his only family. He has had to deal with these tragedies though a difficult time while he was addicted to cannabis. This is a man who can put his past behind him."
Green, now of St Albans Road in Bootle, also pleaded guilty to abstracting electricity. He was jailed for two years due to his "poor compliance with court orders" - the offences were committed while he was on post-sentence supervision.
Sentencing, Recorder Richard Conley said: "That was social housing being paid for by the taxpayers of Liverpool for people struggling to get a roof over their heads. That privilege was afforded to you.
"You were instead sleeping on friends' sofas while using that property in order to grow a very substantial amount of cannabis for onward sale. On any view, this was a very significant quantity of cannabis.
"It was clearly a commercial operation. You would have had to be smoking an extraordinary amount of cannabis this to be anything like a personal operation.
"This wasn't some sort of momentary lapse in judgement. You had obviously invested time and effort."
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