Drugs Plotter Spent Year On Run After Cannabis Factory Raids

A criminal, who spent a year on the run after his gang’s £200,000 cannabis-growing operation was smashed following police raids on ten drug ‘factories’, finally walked free on Friday after nine months’ locked-up.

Jobless Terry Skinner, 26, of Kestrel Close, Hainault, Essex, pleaded guilty to conspiring with others to produce cannabis on or about July 10, 2008 and was sentenced to twelve months’ imprisonment, suspended for two years plus twelve months’ probation supervision.

Prosecutor Mr. Roger Smart told Croydon Crown Court: “Vast quantities of plants were produced at several cannabis factories.

“The gang were engaged in production on a commercial scale, renting premises and installing high-output lighting, plus irrigation systems for the plants, often by-passing the mains electricity meter.

“Windows were blacked-out and a high value crop was being produced worth £200,000,” added Mr. Smart. “This was a high value commercial operation.”

Five other gang members have already been jailed, but Skinner dodged the police round up on July 10, 2008 when officers from the Metropolitan Police’s Kidnap and Specialist Investigation Team smashed the organisation.

Officers had been investigating a suspected abduction and Skinner was observed during an undercover surveillance operation with gang members and inside one of the ‘factories.’

Addresses were raided in the hunt for the kidnap victim and police stumbled upon the huge cultivation plot.

Cannabis-growing operations were found at properties in Kinross Close, Edgwarebury Gardens, Fairfield Crescent, Hillside Gardens and Axholme Avenue, Edgware, Middlesex.

Plus five more at Upper Rainham Road, Hornchurch; Pemberton Gardens, Romford; Ulverston Road, Walthamstow; Holmwood Grove, Mill Hill and Belgrave Crescent, Blyth, Northumberland.

Police issued a public appeal for Skinner’s capture in January, last year, but he was not caught until June 6 and has been in custody ever since.

In Kinross Close, Edgewarebury Gardens and Fairfield Crescent alone an unpaid electricity bill of £70,000 was run up by the gang.