A FAMILY living in west Wales have been busted by Police for running a ‘huge’ cannabis operation, estimated to be worth £3.5m.
Linda McCann, her husband Edward and son Daniel moved from Hampshire to a Carmarthenshire house with a large barn which had been carefully chosen as a suitable base for their business.There, the family set and ran an ‘industrial scale’ drugs operation not only producing huge quantities of herbal cannabis but also cannabis oil and cannabis edibles such as cannabis-infused chocolate. To help with the business they recruited local men, Jack Whittock and Justin Liles.By the time police raised the property, the McCanns had been running their cannabis operation for some five years, and the prosecution believe it may have been worth up to £3.5m over that time.
All five defendants had previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to produce cannabis and conspiracy to supply cannabis and to acquiring criminal property – namely cash – when Linda McCann, Whittock and Liles appeared in the dock for sentencing. Edward and Daniel McCann are yet to be sentenced.
The court heard that on October 23, 2020, police executed a search warrant at an isolated property in the village of Cwmbach, near Whitland in Carmarthenshire. Ian Wright said officers forced entry to a large outbuilding or bar next to a detached house on the plot and were met by an “overwhelming smell of cannabis” – inside they found an “extremely well-organised and sophisticated cannabis manufacturing operation”.
The ground floor of the barn had been divided into six growing rooms equipped with lights and extractor fans, and a main working area with a commercial-size oven, and a pressure-device for extracting oil from plants. Some 202 plants of various stages of maturity from saplings in propagators to a large “mother” plant from which cuttings were taken were recovered. The upstairs of the barn was being used as a production area with a table and chairs, tools including secateurs, and clothes-horses on which harvested cannabis plants were being dried.
The barrister told the court police also found a machine for sealing tin cans – tinned cannabis, he said, was an “emerging trend” in the UK as it kept the drug fresher and increased its longevity. The court heard the power supply to the barn had been bypassed, and an armoured trenched cable ran from the building directly to a nearby electricity pole.
The three defendants in the dock were all arrested in the barn.
The court heard that in addition the plants the themselves – which had a potential value of up to £460,000 – officers also recovered around 80kg of “cannabis product” which was worth up to £1.5million. Meanwhile a search of the house next to the barn uncovered £10,000 cash divided into individual £1,000 bundles in the front bedroom, and a cannabis-infused chocolate bar on the kitchen table.
Mr Wright said the McCann family had spent some time meticulously searching for a suitable property from which to run the business, and that the Carmarthenshire small-holding suited their needs perfectly. The property was bought in July 2014 by Daniel McCann £385,000. The prosecutor said over the five-year life of the conspiracy, the cannabis produced at the Carmarthenshire property may have had a street value of up to almost £3.5m.While the McCanns ran the business, Whittock and Liles were involved in harvesting preparing the crop and in its distribution, and were trusted by the family. Read about a dealer running a ‘cannabis shop’ from his home who was rumbled after a postie sniffed out something was going on.
The court heard details of extensive text messaging between the conspirators in which they discussed the workings of the operation, the amounts of drugs being supplied and the money being earned, and the apparent high quality of the product. The court also heard about an expensive AMG Mercedes car which Linda McCann bought, and about the university tuition fees for the McCanns’ daughter Samantha being paid for by “the barn”.
Linda McCann, aged 60, of Cwmbach, Whitland, Carmarthenshire; Justin James David Liles, aged 32, of St Clears, Carmarthenshire; and Jack Whittock, aged 29, of Llanteg, Narberth, Pembrokeshire had all previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to produce and supply cannabis between 2015 and 2020, and to acquiring criminal property – namely cash – on the fifth day of their trial in April this year when they returned to the dock for sentencing.
McCann has no previous convictions; Liles has previous convictions for possession of Class A, B and C drugs, and for possession of ecstasy and ketamine with intent to supply; and Whittock has a previous conviction for making threats to kill.
This offence occurred after this arrest for the cannabis farm matter and saw him making a series of lurid threats against the life of an officer in the case – Whittock was sentenced to two years in prison for that offence, and has already served the custodial element of that sentence. This conviction could not be reported at the time due to the pending cannabis case.
Counsel for McCann told the court that the origins of the operations lay on Hampshire, and in a “different level of production” conceived in an effort to alleviate some of the distressing side-effects of Edward McCann’s chemotherapy treatment for leukaemia.
He described his client as a “loyal and devoted wife and mother” for over 40 years
.Judge Geraint Walters said he was wholly satisfied that the Carmarthenshire property had been bought by the McCanns with a view to using it as base for a sophisticated cannabis factory. He said it had been carefully chosen and then fitted out with equipment for an “industrial scale” cannabis production operation. He described McCann as an “enthusiastic participant” in an operation which he said was a “hugely profitable and successful business”.
The judge said the public was rightly fed up with people operating cannabis farms in the communities and then selling the drug, and he said the courts had a duty make it clear to those starting up such operations that the default sentence was almost always immediate custody.
With a five per cent discount for their guilty pleas McCann was sentenced to six years and seven months in prison, Whittock to two years and 10 months, and Liles to 22 months. The defendants will serve up to half those periods in custody before being released on licence to serve the remainder in the community.Edward and Daniel McCann are due to be sentenced next month, not only for the Carmarthenshire offending but for an earlier cannabis conspiracy in Hampshire.
The prosecution is now conducting an financial investigation into the defendants using Proceeds of Crime Act powers.
The McCanns’ daughter, Samantha, had stood trial with the other defendants in April but when the guilty pleas were entered by the five co-accused the prosecution offered no evidence against her, and the jury was directed to return not guilty verdicts as far as she was concerned.
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