Midweek Sport

TV gangster jailed in real life drug ring

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AN ACTOR who played gangsters in films and TV crime shows was jailed for eight years for running one of Britain’s biggest cannabis factories.

Desmond Bayliss, 41, was the head of a giant drugs enterprise in which 800 cannabis plants were grown on a farm in barns the size of two football pitches.

The hardman – who starred as a crimelord opposite Ray Winstone in an ITV1 cop drama – was a key figure in the real life “organised crime” operation.

He was one of 13 men charged after the farm was raided following a five month police investigat­ion. Detectives uncovered a complex set-up in huge barns at the farm in Castle Bytham near Grantham, Lincs with a potential annual cannabis yield from 800 plants worth around £2.75 million.

At Stafford Crown Court, Bayliss, from Toxteth in Liverpool, was convicted of conspiracy to supply and produce cannabis and will now face a proceeds of crime hearing.

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