Cannabis grower caught twice with farms set up months apart in Wakefield
A heavy cannabis user caught with thousands of pounds worth of plants at his home was arrested five months later with a new set up.
Maciek Wolak had more than £51,000 worth of the drug across the two sites, Leeds Crown Court heard.
The Polish national admitted two counts of producing the drug, but his claims that they were for personal use were rejected.
The court heard that officers raided his property on St Catherine’s Street in the Belle Vue area of Wakefield on December 29, 2019.
Wolak was arrested along with another suspect after police found cannabis grows across two floors containing a total of 44 plants.
A sophisticated set-up was in place with lamps, extractors and an irrigation system, while the electricity had been bypassed.
There was also more than 168 grammes of cannabis bagged up. With a potential yield of the plants being 2.5kg of skunk cannabis, the total value seized came to £30,750.
Wolak was interviewed and released under investigation.
Then on May 23, 2020, police raided another property on Acme Terrace in Belle Vue, and found another set-up belonging to Wolak, prosecutor Beatrice Allsop said.
There were 21 plants in upstairs bedrooms worth £18,000, plus another 309 grammes of cannabis dried and bagged up ready to be sold.
The total value of the plants and packaged cannabis in that home came to £20,850.
Mitigating, Stuart Field said 34-year-old Wolak had no previous convictions.
He said he showed “remarkably poor judgement” in setting up another grow shortly after his first arrest. He said he was not charged until October last year.
He said Wolak, of no fixed address and appearing in court from HMP Leeds where he has been on remand, had been in the UK for eight years.
He said he came looking for work, and had found factory and menial jobs. He said Wolak had still not learned to speak English.
He added: “He has had, for a number of years, a cannabis habit. He started to grow it largely for himself.”
Judge Penelope Belcher conceded there was no evidence of any business transactions regarding the sale of any cannabis, or any “trappings of wealth”.
She added: “But I can’t accept it was for personal use based on the amount found.
“Inevitably, some was for onward sale. Clearly you were cultivating on a commercial scale.”
She jailed him for three years.