Ruislip & Eastcote & Northwood Gazette
Botched cannabis factory raid ended in fatal stabbing
TWO BURGLARS DENY MURDER AND WOUNDING WITH INTENT IN COURT
TWO burglars allegedly murdered a 21-year-old man and attacked his brother in a botched raid on a west London cannabis factory.
They broke into the Hounslow house after hearing it was being used as part of a “sophisticated” grow operation with up to £95,000 worth of drugs.
However, Renato Geci was stabbed to death after Shaddai Smith, 32, and Jason Sebran, 38, broke into the Granville Avenue property on March 22 last year. The two men are on trial at the Old Bailey, where they deny murder and wounding with intent.
Sebran allegedly told police after the incident he had “no morals” about breaking into the cannabis factory because “they shouldn’t be doing it in the first place”. The defendants, one armed with a screwdriver, are said to have assembled outside the property in a group of at least seven men before entering through an upstairs window.
When 29-year-old Vilson Geci went to see what was going on, he was confronted by the men, sprayed with a liquid he believed to be acid and stabbed in the thigh, jurors heard. After one of the defendants grabbed a knife from the kitchen, a violent struggled ensued after which Vilson’s brother Renato was killed, the court was told.
Prosecutor Crispin Aylett QC said: “In the early hours of the morning of Monday March 22 last year, three cars and a van containing at least seven men assembled outside Granville Avenue. They had discovered that the house was in fact being used as a cannabis factory. Inside the house there was a sophisticated operation involving the cultivation of over 200 cannabis plants.
“The seven men were intent on stealing the cannabis – secure in the knowledge that the owners would not go running to the police. As the second defendant, Jason Sebran, was later to tell police: ‘It’s not like I’m coming into someone’s house and nicking your TV and your video – it’s cannabis. They shouldn’t be doing it in the first place so I ain’t got no morals about taking it’.”
Mr Aylett continued: “All the same, those men were not acting in the public interest. Instead they were in it for money. An expert has suggested that the potential value of the cannabis could have been as much as £95,000.”
My Aylett added: “A violent struggle took place inside the house between the two defendants and the two brothers. Renato was stabbed to death with the knife as well as being stabbed with the screwdriver.
“As for Vilson, he was stabbed in the thigh with the knife and he also sustained a significant number of other injuries, albeit most of them were fairly superficial.”
Mr Aylett said the two defendants had climbed in through a bathroom window on the upstairs floor using a ladder. Jurors were told that both men have already pleaded guilty to burglary but said they believed the premises to be unoccupied at the time.
“The prosecution allege the first defendant, Shaddai Smith, had with him a bottle containing some sort of liquid and the second defendant, Jason Sebran, had a screwdriver, no doubt for use in opening the window but also available as a potential weapon should the need arise, as it did,” the prosecutor said.
Jurors heard the men fled the scene after the incident but were both arrested days later.
Smith, of Firwood Lane, Romford, accepted he had entered the house but said he had come under attack from the occupants, the court heard.
Sebran, of Stanford-le-Hope, Essex, claimed he had been waiting outside the property. Mr Aylett told the court it is not alleged the men “set out to kill anyone” and they “no doubt regret what happened”.
But he added they must have known there was a prospect of violence and would do “whatever was necessary either to get what they had come for or else to get away without being apprehended”.
The trial continues.