Sheffield Crown Court: Drug-offender caught with 30 cannabis plants pays a heavy price

By Jon Cooper
Published 12th Apr 2023, 16:43 BST
Updated 12th Apr 2023, 16:43 BST
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A drug-offender who was caught by police with 30 cannabis plants and by-passing electricity at his home has been ordered to pay over £1,340.

Jorgo Mersini, aged 29, of Scarsdale Street, at Dinnington, near Sheffield and Rotherham, admitted cultivating the class B drug and abstracting electricity without paying for the power after police had found the drugs at his home, according to a Sheffield Crown Court hearing.

Prosecuting barrister Oliver Connor told the hearing on April 12 that police had been responding to a report from another person of a burglary when they entered the property and found 30 cannabis plants, 12 transistors and four fans, and that the defendant was abstracting electricity without paying.

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Mr Connor said: “The defendant had operational management function in his house where he had a mortgage and because of that he would have had some understanding of the scale of the operation.”

Sheffield Crown Court has heard how a drug-offender has been ordered to pay over £1,340 after police found 30 cannabis plants at his home in Dinnington, near Sheffield and Rotherham. Pictured is an example of cannabis plants courtesy of Pixabay.Sheffield Crown Court has heard how a drug-offender has been ordered to pay over £1,340 after police found 30 cannabis plants at his home in Dinnington, near Sheffield and Rotherham. Pictured is an example of cannabis plants courtesy of Pixabay.
Sheffield Crown Court has heard how a drug-offender has been ordered to pay over £1,340 after police found 30 cannabis plants at his home in Dinnington, near Sheffield and Rotherham. Pictured is an example of cannabis plants courtesy of Pixabay.

Mersini, who has no previous convictions, pleaded guilty to cultivating class B drug cannabis and to abstracting or using electricity without permission after the police uncovered the offending on December 11, 2022.

Defence barrister Tom Jackson said: “The defendant said he grew so many plants because he was conscious a lot of them were dying and he has little experience but that is why he had so many.”

Mr Jackson added that a number of males had entered the property with baseball bats during the reported burglary before leaving.

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He also said Mersini came to the UK from Greece in 2018 and he has been a warehouse worker and courier who originally lived in Northamptonshire and has since moved to Rotterdam, in The Netherlands.

The judge – Recorder Caroline Sellars – told Mersini: “Yours is a significant role because it was your own operation that you were clearly in control of.”

She added Mersini’s offending was also aggravated by the electricity being by-passed not only because he avoided the cost but because of the dangerous risk such an offence posed.

Recorder Sellars sentenced Mersini to eight months of custody suspended for 12 months and ordered him to pay £1,000 as well as £340 costs and a victim surcharge.