Hapless cannabis farmers get reduced sentences because they couldn't keep their plants alive
Two hapless cannabis farmers who got most of their crops killed before their industrial unit was raided by police have been jailed.
Toby Rising, from Wolverhampton, and Luke Facer, from Kidderminster, hired an unit on the Hartlebury Industrial Estate in Kidderminster in 2020 and illegally used £114,563 worth of electricity to power their cannabis farm.
Facer, an electrician, successfully bypassed the Utilita electricity supply and destroyed the energy company's electricity box and surrounding flooring, causing £1,190 damage.
When police raided the premises in July 2022, after a tip-off, they found 179 cannabis plants in four large tents which were set up to grow three crops a year on rotation.
However, despite the operation in theory yielding more than £100,000 worth of cannabis a year the vast majority of the plants found were either dead or dying and were worthless to any drug dealer.
Sentencing the pair to two years and ten months in prison at Worcester Crown Court Judge Jonathan Salmon explained he would have been jailed them for longer if the the plants were properly cultivated.
