A MAN has avoided jail despite having thousands of pounds worth of cannabis growing in his Clydebank home.

Police on patrol detected the smell of cannabis from a property in Windsor Crescent. After obtaining a search warrant and returning to the door, Vincent Brown, 43, answered along with his mother.

Police found a quantity of cannabis in the bag of Brown’s mother. In one bedroom were old plant stalks and soil, a number of lights and other items. 

In the hall, the electricity meter had been bypassed and Scottish Power came out to make sure the property was safe.

In the second bedroom the walls of a cupboard were covered in foil and there was a cultivation area. Throughout the property were bags in containers filled with cannabis.

Depute fiscal Jeanette Maclean told Dumbarton Sheriff Court yesterday Brown had a total of 571.8g of cannabis worth an estimated £6,130.

She added that when interviewed by police, Brown said the cannabis was solely his.

Defence solicitor Roddy Boag said his own expert disputed the value of the cannabis, reporting wholesale it would be worth £2,500 or a maximum subdivided value of £4,800. The crown later accepted the lower value of £4,800 for the drugs.

Mr Boag told the court the bags of cannabis were not commercial amounts and he had only supplied to his mother and to friends if they were visiting. Otherwise, it was entirely for his own use.

Brown was described as suffering from a “depressive condition” and could sometimes lock himself away from the world without contact for weeks at a time. He had a “hermit-like” existence, said Mr Boag.

But after pleading guilty, Brown’s meetings with the social work department were “fairly moving” and “quite emotional”. He has been drug and alcohol free for the past three weeks.

Mr Boag admitted: “When the court hears of a cultivation, the court must, to some extent, raise its eyebrows when told it was for his own use.

“While the values of the quantity are significant, a fair amount of the sting is taken out by the background and enough of the sting is removed that a community disposal is suitable.”

Brown had pleaded guilty to possessing cannabis with intent to supply on June 9, 2015, to producing the drug between April 9 and June 9 that year, and to bypassing the electricity meter.

Sheriff Simon Pender told Brown: “Clearly cultivation of a Class B drug to this extent is an offence for which custodial sentences must be considered. I have decided by a very narrow margin and with some hesitation to impose a direct alternative to custody.”

Brown will be under supervision for two years and will have to carry out 300 hours of unpaid work in the community in the next 12 months.