Cannabis grower is given jail term

Nov 20 2009 by Les Stewart, Strathearn Herald

ALMOST 200 cannabis plants, with anestimated street value of £55,000, were seized when police swooped on a house in a quiet suburb of Auchterarder.

Stalks of almost 200 more plants, which appeared to have been recently harvested, were also seized when police raided the five-bedroom house at 53 Glenorchil View.

They could have produced an estimated £25,000 of the Class B drug, Perth Sheriff Court was told on Wednesday afternoon.

The discovery led to 26-year-old Chinese national Shou Tong Lin being jailed for 30 months. He will also be deported at the end of his jail term.

He admitted that between April 20 and July 16 this year, at the Lang Toon house, while acting with others whose identities are meantime unknown, he produced the Class B drug.

A not guilty plea to another charge of being concerned in the supply of cannabis to others was accepted by the prosecution.

Depute fiscal John Malpass said that “acting on information,” police liaised with the owner of the property, which had been leased to a “gentleman of Chinese origin.”

They obtained the key and discovered what was described as “a significant cannabis cultivation.”

Two of the bedrooms were being used for growing 196 plants which appeared to be mature to the point of harvest.

Two of the other bedrooms had the stalks of a further 197 plants which appeared to have been recently harvested.

The accused, who was occupying the fifth bedroom, was detained.

During the course of the police interview, he stated he was to be paid £220 a week for tending the plants but was unable to identify the main person involved in the operation.

It later emerged that the accused was an asylum seeker who had gone missing from a detention centre.

Solicitor Paul Ralph, for Lin, said: “He is, I’m afraid, another of what is becoming an increasingly long line of patsies for offences of this sort.”

The accused had paid £30,000 to “get out” of China more than four years ago. Since then he had worked in Bolivia, Italy, France and the UK, paying off that debt.

“In four years, that sum has reduced but he still owes £13,000. In addition, the same people held, as surety, the title for his family house in China.”

The accused had been made redundant from his last job in a Manchester restaurant and had replied to an advert for cleaners on an online chat room used by many Chinese.

He was to have been paid £250-£280 but was taken to Scotland where he was told he would be looking after “Chinese herbs.”

Lin had his prison term backdated to July 17, when he was remanded.