Boxer ran £12,000 cannabis farm
ASEMI-PRO boxer grew a £12,000 cannabis set-up while on bail for another drugs production offence.
Sam Clarke, of Accrington, was caught after he handed himself in to police in relation to a blackmail investigation, Burnley Crown Court heard.
Officers searched his former home on Robert Street in Accrington in February this year where they found 11 cannabis plants in a bedroom hydroponic set-up and the electricity meter bypassed.
Clarke, 34, had been on bail at the time for growing another £12,700 cannabis set up at his sister’s family home in October last year. However, Judge Simon Newell told the court that ‘nobody knew’ about the second cannabis production charge when he passed the original sentence.
At the latest hearing, Clarke pleaded guilty to producing cannabis and abstracting electricity and was given a 20-month jail sentence, suspended for two years, with 80 hours’ unpaid work.
Darren Lee-Smith, defending, said Clarke, of Haywood Road, was ‘falling off the rails’ at the time of both offences, but has worked hard to get back on track.
He said: “He is not in breach of the suspended sentence, but he would have been on bail or at least under investigation for the latter offences. The most important piece of mitigation is his timely guilty plea, accepting full responsibility. Since the commission of these offences, the primary issues that led him to these offences have been alleviated. He became involved through an extensive cocaine addiction leading to debt. That debt has now been discharged.”
Mr Lee-Smith said Clarke is a semi-professional boxer, training for a semi-professional fight in October and is ‘hoping to return to employment’. In June, Clarke was given a 15-month jail term, suspended for two years, with 120 hours’ unpaid work and a 50-day rehabilitation activity requirement after pleading guilty to producing cannabis, for the earlier offence.
Clarke’s sister Leanne Shorrock, 29, and her partner David Harris, 36, both of Avenue Parade, Accrington both pleaded guilty to knowingly per- mitting the production of cannabis at their property. Shorrock received an 18-month community order with a three-month curfew order. Harris was given a 20-month jail term, suspended for two years, and 200 hours’ unpaid work.