$1000 fine for growing ‘pot’

Press, 24 February 1979, Page 21

$1000 fine for growing ‘pot’

A young man, who was convicted of growing cannabis in a secret room behind a sliding panel in a wardrobe in a house in Bishop Street, St Albans, has been fined $lOOO by Mr .lustice Casey in the Supreme Court.

The man, Jonathan Hugh Waddy. aged 21, a fine arts student, was found guilty by a jury last week on a charge of cultivating cannabis. The jury found him not guilty of having cannabis for supply or sale.

Evidence w r as given that the drug squad searched the house shortly after 9 a m. on September 14. Behind a large painting in Waddy’s bedroom they found a concealed wardrobe which was padlocked. A sliding panel in the back of the wardrobe led to a secret room which contained all the paraphernalia for growing cannabis. Mr B. McClelland, Q.C., for Waddy, said that since the charges had been laid his client had stopped using cannabis. His Court appearance had been a severe lesson which he would not forget.

His Honour said he hoped Waddy realised that the offence carried a seven-year prison sentence. He would] have regard to the jury’s verdict that there was ho question of Waddy’s growing the cannabis for sale or supply.

“Nevertheless it was a large-scale enterprise skilfully carried out and very skilfully concealed, and I must regard it as very different from the amateurish backyard type of cultivation that Mr McClelland has referred to. involving one of your flatmates,” his Honour said.

“However, I must express some concern at the type of people who are coming before the courts time after time on these offences. They are good, solid, young, and intelligent people like yourself, obviously seeing nothing wrong with the cultivation or smoking of cannabis.

“That’s an area where I suppose opinions can differ, although I by no means go along with the view of the relative harmlessness of this drug,” said his Honour.