An ex-army and Royal Mail worker who allowed his home to be used to grow cannabis to pay off a debt has been jailed.
John O’Brien, 40, was caught by police after they executed a search warrant at his home on Paddock Street in Oswaldtwistle on March 31 this year.
Officers found 30 cannabis plants in a locked bedroom along with other drugs paraphernalia, including lighting units, air filter units and transformers, Burnley Crown Court heard. Electricity North West later confirmed that the electricity meter had been bypassed.
O’Brien originally pleaded guilty in July to allowing premises to be used for the production of cannabis.
The sentence hearing was adjourned pending the outcome of a separate violent disorder charge to be heard last month.
However O’Brien pleaded guilty at Canterbury Crown Court to the offence which took place at a ‘rally’ in Dover and was jailed for 15 months.
This week at Burnley Crown Court, Judge Beverley Lunt imposed a concurrent four-month jail sentence for the drugs offence.
Julian King, prosecuting, told the court that when O’Brien was interviewed by police he ‘identified a number of personal issues regarding anger management having left the army’.
The court heard how he had been a cannabis user and had ‘built up a personal drug debt’ and other debts on credit cards and loans.
The prosecutor said O’Brien had been approached to use his property for the cultivation of cannabis and agreed to pay off his debt.
Hugh McKee, defending, said O’Brien deserved credit for his early guilty plea and frank interview.
He said: “This has brought him up short and brought about a change in the way he lives.
“He drives for a well-known food distributor, mainly to schools as far away as north Wales.
“He referred himself about eight years ago to a doctor who sent him for counselling in relation to anger management as he thought he needed it.”
Mr McKee said O’Brien was allowed to take early retirement from the Royal Mail in 2013 on medical grounds.
He added: “Since his arrest he has not heard from the dealer, he’s changed his phone number and he doesn’t know where he lives.”
