Kettering cannabis gardener jailed over £400,000 town centre drugs farm

A cannabis gardener who was caught trying to escape a Kettering town centre drugs farm has been put behind bars.

Juljan Shehu spent three hours on a roof before being talked down after a police raid found the set-up, potentially worth more than £400,000, right under shoppers’ noses.

Yesterday (Tuesday) the Albanian national – who entered the UK illegally – was jailed for nine months after admitting cultivating cannabis.

District Judge (MC) Tan Ikram CBE told him: "You knew it was wrong.”

Northampton Crown Court heard police, acting on intelligence, raided 54 Gold Street at 7am on August 4.

Shehu, 32, climbed out of an upstairs window and made his way across three roofs before eventually being talked down by the fire service and arrested.

Inside the premises – last occupied by a now-closed coffee shop – were 513 cannabis plants spread across three storeys.

Prosecutor James Smith-Wilds said the set-up could have produced a yield of up to 43kg of the class B drug, worth up to £431,000.

Shehu, of no fixed address, gave no comment answers when interviewed by police.

The court heard he had been tending to the plants to repay debts.

Mitigating, Liam Muir said: "He knows there is only one sentence the court can pass today and he knows that he will be deported.”

Shehu will serve half of his sentence in custody and the seized cannabis will be destroyed.

District Judge (MC) Ikram added: "I have considered whether I could suspend the sentence but there are certain offences which, in my judgement, require a strong signal and immediate custody.”