Speedway legend has sentence changed

FORMER speedway world champion Michael Lee who was given a community service order for growing £3,000 of cannabis at his Suffolk home has had the order revoked due to his work commitments abroad.

Lee, 49, told a judge at Ipswich Crown Court that he now earns his living tuning bikes in Poland for a number of riders including two British riders at world class level.

He said they had recently signed contracts for a Polish club and one of them has recently become the British Under 21 Champion.

Lee said his work was seasonal and involved working 15 hours a day, seven days a week. The court heard that Lee of Freckenham Road, Worlingworth had appeared in court in November last year and had been given a 14-month community order which included doing 160 hours unpaid work for an offence of producing cannabis.

Yesterday Russell Butcher, for Suffolk Probation Service, said it had been known in November that Lee wouldn't be able to start his community service immediately because of his work commitments in Poland.

He said that since November Lee had only managed to complete one session of five and a half hours which left 154 and a half hours of the order outstanding.

He said that because of Lee's continuing work commitments abroad there was no realistic possibility of progress being made with the order and he asked for it to be revoked.

Judge John Holt agreed to revoke the community service order and replaced it with an additional six months to be added on to his period of supervision making a total of two years.

Lee told the court that he no longer had any involvement in cannabis.

At the hearing in November the court heard that cannabis and equipment needed to grow it were found during a raid on Lee's home.

The prosecution accepted that the cannabis had been for Lee's personal use.

Lee's barrister said he had relied on large amounts of cannabis for many years and grew cannabis for his own use and no one else's.

Lee rode for the Kings Lynn Stars in the early 1980's and was one of the sport's new breed of superstars becoming the first British World Champion for many years.