Cannabis plan worth £2.75m thwarted

A gang of criminals from Staffordshire and the Black Country intended to flood the streets with £2.75million of cannabis a year from a huge drugs factory.

The men allegedly spent £1.4million on the design and construction of the purpose-built facility in three enormous barns, on a farm in Lincolnshire in what police say was set to become one of the country's largest cannabis factories.

The gang – masterminded by Burntwood man Neil Bridges – included members from Wolverhampton, West Bromwich, Rugeley, Sutton Coldfield and outside the Midlands.

They travelled to the site together after meeting each morning at a Little Chef in Barton-under-Needwood, Stafford Crown Court was told.

In the raid on the Lincolnshire factory detectives found two huge generators - each big enough to power a hospital – which had been obtained to avoid drawing on the National Grid, said Andrew Lockhart, QC, prosecuting.

Mr Lockhart described Peter Bassett, 46, of Rugeley, as Bridges' "right-hand man" and Russell Nicholls, of Wolverhampton, as the electrician of the gang.

The alleged conspiracy, between September 2009 and September 2010, involved the stronger 'skunk' cannabis.

The case continues.