Social media post about Calderdale warehouse with “no snow on it” led to discovery of large-scale cannabis plant farm

Bradford Crown Court heard today (Tues) that suspicion about a cannabis farm led to a police community support officer visiting the site on Clay House Lane, Greetland, and he alerted colleagues after he could smell the drug.

Prosecutor Laura McBride said officers forced entry into the warehouse and found “a sophisticated industrial set-up” and seized a total of 865 cannabis plants spread across six growing rooms.

She described how there were four growing rooms on the ground floor including one containing 352 seedlings with a further two growing rooms on the first floor.

“Officers conducted a search of the warehouse,” she said.

“There appeared to have been someone living there. There was water on a stove and a mattress and a duvet.”

The court heard that a police dog was deployed and found Artan Rama, 50, hiding on the premises.

Albanian Rama, of no fixed abode, claimed he was hiding because he thought they were thieves and said he didn’t know that cannabis was an illegal substance.

During a police interview he admitted he had got involved in the operation after being promised £6000 a month for watering the plants and transferring them into larger pots when necessary.

Miss McBride said she did not have a valuation for the potential drugs yield, but said there were clearly elements of this being industrial quantities.

Rama, who came to the UK with his wife and two daughters last September, pleaded guilty today to a charge of producing cannabis and was jailed for two years.

His solicitor advocate John Bottomley explained that Rama, who had no previous convictions, had been living in Greece, but ended up coming to the UK to look for employment.

He said Rama’s wife and daughters got their national insurance numbers, but he did not and the family had been trying to earn money to send to his father who needed to pay for cancer treatment.

“He is a family man who is deeply ashamed of his actions,” said Mr Bottomley.

“He describes his actions as being desperate to help his father.

“The others involved were bringing him food and he was not permitted to leave.”

Mr Bottomley submitted that Rama had been exploited by people who were more criminally sophisticated.

Judge Mushtaq Khokhar said he acccepted that Rama had come to this country with “the best of motives”, but he had become involved in the enterprise because of the promise of substantial reward.