12 April 2016
The Nottingham Post reports…
Computing graduate Jack Cajkler had the equivalent of 300 days worth of the drug maturing under a small tent in a bedroom at his girlfriend’s Clipstone home.
He had claimed he needed to smoke cannabis due to a spinal injury suffered when he worked in a warehouse after leaving university.
The 25-year-old had slipped into a depressive cycle, Nottingham Crown Court heard, and began managing the pain himself with the Class B drug.
But the wake up call for Cajkler came when police turned up at the girlfriend’s home in Highfield Road and found the crop in October last year.
Judge Michael Stokes QC today gave him a ten-month prison sentence, suspended for one year, and 140 hours of unpaid work.
But he stressed it was “nonsense” to say cannabis helped Sciatica which he said had been the “clear” indication in Cajkler’s basis of plea.
Judge Stokes said: “I don’t want you to leave this court thinking that I don’t know what the reality was in this case.
“It is quite clear to me, whatever basis of plea was accepted by the prosecution, that this 56-plant grow was intended purposefully for commercial purpose.”
Jon Fountain, prosecuting, said Cajkler’s partner had been cautioned for allowing the premises to be used to grow cannabis.
Of Cajkler’s role, he said: “There was no cropped cannabis or signs of dealing detected.”
Police had attended his girlfriend’s home to do a welfare check after receiving an abandoned 999 call.
They went in through an unlocked door and discovered plants, all of the same maturity, nurtured under hundreds of pounds worth of equipment.
The estimated yield was 1.5 kilograms, although no figure was given in court of the potential value of the crop.
“He immediately claimed responsibility for the grow and it was nothing to do with his girlfriend,” said Mr Fountain.
Cajkler had told police he had a five gram-a-day habit for pain relief.
“There was 300 days worth of cannabis there,” added Mr Fountain. “It is accepted there was a commercial element to this.”
Cajkler, of Fifth Avenue, Forest Town, had no previous convictions. He was cautioned in 2011 for possessing the party drug, M-Cat, and another unknown drug.
Miss Campbell said his increased addiction to cannabis was due to a back injury that led to the Sciatica.
“This is the kick he needed,” she said after the cannabis was discovered.
There were exceptional circumstances in his case, she added. Cajkler had turned his life around in the last six months and volunteered at Mansfield soup kitchen and had been fundraising for charity at a local pub.
Sciatica http://www.spine-health.com/conditions/sciatica/what-you-need-know-about-sciatica
Image: Metro.co.uk
