Kentish Express Ashford & District
Shooting led to downfall of cannabis farmer
Plants were grown in huge hidden bunker
Five armed men wearing balaclavas raided an underground drugs factory in Little Chart and shot one of dealers.
Police were called to Orchard Cottage in Little Chart Road in October after a 999 call by the victim’s girlfriend.
They found Craig Haines bleeding from a shoulder wound, but as paramedics were treating him detectives noticed the overpowering smell of cannabis coming from the property.
Now a judge has heard how as Haines, 40, was heading to the hospital for treatment, officers tried to locate the source of the smell.
Eventually police had to return to the property after calling in the services of a helicopter with thermal imagining equipment.
And now Haines has been jailed for 40 months after Canterbury Crown Court heard how police found an underground bunker at the farm with a secret entrance under a stairway.
Haines, who still has pellets in his shoulder from the attack, pleaded guilty to the production of cannabis and abstracting electricity.
Judge James O’Mahony said Haines had driven around in an expensive car which he could not have afforded on his income.
And the seven-room bunker had been guarded by a sophisticated CCTV operation where officers discovered cannabis plants being grown with a street value of more than £23,000.
Prosecutor Paul Valder told how police were alerted after five hooded men, armed with a shotgun, forced their way into the property and shot Haines.
After arriving, police realised that cannabis plants were being cultivated, but couldn’t work out from where the smell was emanating.
He said it was only after studying images from the equipment in the helicopter that they were able to locate the bunker.
The sophisticated factory was run on stolen power.
The judge told Haines he wasn’t “some kind of itiner- ant gardener coming in and out just to water the plants.”
“The fact that a gang of professional criminals came after you and shot you makes it clear that you were right at the heart of this operation. You were a significant player.
“This was one of the most sophisticated operations that this court, or indeed anywhere else, has heard of.
“If being shot by armed i ntruders hasn’t t aught you a lesson about becoming involved in this level of crime..I don’t know what will.”
Police are still hunting the five men.
‘This was one of the most sophisticated operations that this court has heard of’