Man admits creating secret cannabis room

A TYRE fitter who pleaded guilty to growing 18 cannabis plants at his elderly parents' house without their knowledge has been told he may face jail.

The plants were found by police when they raided the home that Keith Bowers, 31, shares with his parents in Cranwell Crescent, Ipswich, on November 30.

Acting on information that something suspicious may have been going on at the house, officers found he had created a partition in his bedroom where he was cultivating the plants, without his parents' knowledge.

Gareth Davies, prosecuting, told South East Suffolk Magistrates' Court that as well as the plants, lamps, foil sheets and growing products were found behind the partition.

Mr Davies said: “He had created a 'room within a room' - it was quite a sophisticated operation and it would seem his elderly parents did not know what was going on.”

Bowers was not present when the police carried out the raid, but he was arrested shortly afterwards and when interviewed admitted growing the plants to feed his own cannabis habit.

He told officers that he had learned how to grow the plant from speaking to friends and reading on the internet, and he had taken it up in order to save himself the expense of buying cannabis from dealers.

Mr Davies said: “He was having a go at propagating them and it seems he was quite successful.”

The court heard from Mark Holt, mitigating for Bowers, that it had not been possible to put a value on the crop as the plants had not grown to the stage where they produced useable cannabis.

He said: “Clearly he was caught red-handed, and he admits he constructed the structure for growing cannabis.”

He added that there was no suggestion that the plants were ever intended for anything other than personal use.

Magistrate Bernard Hindes adjourned sentencing for reports to be prepared, saying that the level of the offence passed the custody threshold and he could not rule out sending Bowers to prison.

He will be sentenced at a later date.