Couple set up drugs factory in their Staffordshire home
Police swooped on a cannabis factory being run at the home of a couple from Staffordshire, a court heard.
The raid at the property, where Daniel Felgate and Samantha Key lived, revealed a sophisticated set-up capable of producing £12,000 worth of the drug, Stafford Crown Court heard.
The investigation also led police to another cannabis grower, Thomas Morris, in Stoke-on-Trent.
Felgate, aged 30, of Priory Road, Stone, was sentenced to 12 months in prison suspended for two years, ordered to do 200 hours of unpaid community work and pay £1,200 costs.
His partner Key, 28, of the same address, was given a six-month community order.
Morris, aged 30, now of Redhill Gardens, Stone got a 12-month community order. All of them admitted cultivating cannabis.
Mr Kevin Jones, prosecuting, said officers raiding the Priory Road home of Felgate and Key on November 3 last year smelled cannabis coming from the garage.
Inside were two tents, one a nursery for 24 young cannabis plants, the other a drying station.
The total yield was estimated at just over two kilograms, with a potential street value of just under £12,000.
Mr Jones said it would take a heavy cannabis user two-and-a-half years to get through that amount.
When questioned Felgate said he had spent £500 on equipment and a further £300 on electricity.
Also seized in the raid was a mobile phone with messages, which led police to a house in Hemmings Road, Stoke, where Morris was living in as a tenant.
He had six cannabis plants growing in a bedroom, worth £4,500 on the streets, and told officers it was for his own use.
Judge Paul Glenn said: "Felgate, you took a conscious decision to grow your own cannabis to cover your own use and to sell.
"You have a partner and three children and a fourth on the way. You take the blame for your partner being involved in this.
"I'm not impressed by you providing advice and assistance to Morris in his growing of cannabis."
The judge heard that Key had been acting under instruction from her partner. Mr Paul Cliff, defending Felgate, said some of the cannabis would have been given away and some used by the defendant.
