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Gloucestershire Business News

Men charged following discovery of cannabis factory in Gloucester

Two men charged with producing almost a thousand cannabis plants in two floors of city centre offices in Gloucester have today been remanded in custody to appear before a crown court judge next month.

At Cheltenham Magistrates court Adeljan Oshafi, 31, of no fixed address, pleaded guilty to producing a quantity of cannabis in 1 Hare Lane, Gloucester and was committed to Gloucester crown court for sentence on Nov 23.

Neim Bakia, 23, also of no fixed address, did not enter a plea to the charge and was also sent in custody to the Crown court to appear at a plea and case management hearing on the same date.

Helen Smith, for Oshafi, who is allegedly an illegal immigrant to the UK from Albania, said he was working as a 'low level' gardener and had not played any part in setting up the cannabis growing operation or by-passing electricity.

But she said she accepted that he was nevertheless facing a jail term.

Prosecutor Jeremy Oliver told the court that the plants were found on Friday evening when police executed a warrant at the address - two floors of offices above a beauty parlour and other shops on the corner of Hare Lane and Northgate street.

The whole property, which was undergoing refurbishment, was given over to cannabis plants, he said.

He said there were 963 plants with a drugs yield potentially worth between a quarter of a million and three-quarters of a million pounds.

It was, he alleged, as sophisticated a cannabis growing operation as there could be.

When police moved into the premises on Friday the full scale of the operation became clearly visible from the street below as windows were thrown open to release the fumes.

Shoppers could see the cannabis plants in a blaze of light inside the rooms as police officers wearing oxygen masks to protect themselves from the fumes took photographs of the scene.

Passers-by stopped to take photographs of the scenes visible through the wide open office windows. One couple who got married in the Abbey pub across the road from the offices posed for pictures with the drug plantation visible in the background.

The building is next door to one pub and opposite another. Sainsbury's is just down the road in one direction and a fish and chip shop in the other.

The tower of Gloucester Cathedral is visible from the scene and the premises are only about 200 metres from the official residence of the Bishop of Gloucester, Right Rev Rachel Treweek.

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