£250,000 cannabis factory 'destroyed nice home'

A DETACHED house in a rural North Wales village was left “destroyed” after being converted into a £250k cannabis factory.

- BY DAVID POWELL Court reporter

Criminals bypassed the electricity supply and left the Flintshire home so damp crime scene investigators wouldn't go upstairs.

A judge at Mold Crown Court yesterday said the pair involved were caught “red handed, though it had taken more than one person to convert the property in Pantasaph.

Ian Hunter, 43, and William McGrotty, 61, received suspended jail sentences for producing cannabis.

Prosecutor Ryan Rothwell said police executed a warrant at a five-bedroom detached house in Pantasaph in September 2023. “It was immediately obvious it was not a residential house but a commercial scale, cannabis production site,” he said.

Officers found McGrotty in the conservatory and Hunter upstairs. Several rooms contained empty plant pots and fertiliser containers and the electricity supply had been bypassed.

There were seven bags of cannabis and 14 jars of cannabis with a combined weight of 70 kilos.