A Co Down farmer who admitted allowing a large sophisticated cannabis factory to be built on his land has been jailed for 18 months.
Judge Donna McColgan KC told Clive Weir (56) that given his role and £40,000 profit, the custody threshold had been passed.
At an earlier hearing Weir, a father-of-six from the New Road in Hillsborough, confessed to offences of cultivating cannabis, using criminal property and converting criminal property between 1 February 2022 and 3 February 2023.
The charges outline that Weir used criminal property, “namely funds in the sum of £184,536.66 for the purchase of fuel” and also that he converted criminal property by lodging £41,495 into one bank account while lodging £132,571.50 into another.
The charges arise following an intelligence-led search operation at Weir’s farm on 3 February last year and at one stage the defendant contacted the media to criticise the slowness of the police operation.
Summarising the facts of the case during her sentencing remarks on Monday Judge McColgan outlined that while the search was on 3 February, the operation was so large and extensive that it took the police more than a week to dismantle.
The “sizeable operation” had grow lights, heating and ventilation, all powered by a generator supplied by Weir.
Police seized 700 cannabis plants on various stages of maturity from seedlings to fully mature plants and the search operation also uncovered 50 kilos of cannabis and two “gardeners,” Vietnamese brothers 39-year-old Quy Nguyen and Anh Nguyen (35), also listed as from the New Road in Hillsborough.
The brothers entered guilty pleas to cultivating cannabis at an earlier hearing.
According to the police case the factory was so extensive it would have produced cannabis worth £200,000 every month although that profit would have went to the organisers rather than Weir.
While the defence contend that Weir “never set foot” in any part of the cannabis factory itself, he did buy fuel for the generator which powered the operation.
Weir’s profit, said the judge, was the £41,495 which “represented payments made directly to the defendant by those controlling the cannabis growing operation on his premises.”
Judge McColgan said while the defence do not accept the proposition, the prosecution contend that Weir’s role was “at a level equivalent to that envisaged for a manager” given his physical proximity to the growing operation and that he bought the fuel for the generator.
Although the judge did not specifically say what her view was she told the court the sentencing range for a manager was between three to seven years, adding that had Weir contested the case and been convicted she would have imposed a four year jail term.
Turning to defence reports, Judge McColgan said they showed how Weir had depression and anxiety since he was declared bankrupt in 2006 and suggested that at the time of the cannabis seizure, “that he wasn’t thinking straights he had significant family issues and had somewhat lost focus.”
Earlier defence KC Michael Chambers emphasised that Weir was due credit for his guilty pleas and also stressed that a flock of chickens he owns cannot be moved so if he is jailed, “they will have to be destroyed.”
“That is just something he is going to have to deal with,” Judge McColgan told the court before she jailed the 58-year-old.