Colchester care home cannabis factory farmers jailed

The “enormous” class B drug factory, worth at minimum £1 million, was found across several floors of the former Old Rectory Care Home, in Spring Lane, Lexden.

The court heard the plants were being grown as part of a “sophisticated” set up with lights, heating and a watering system.

Larry St Ange, 35, Ali Acer, 37, and Erdal Ozmen, 41, who admitted a charge of producing a class B drug, were found sleeping in a ground-floor room.

Jerry Hayes, prosecuting, said: “The room was large and contained three beds, which were mattresses on top of wooden crates, and next to each bed were large knives and weapons.”

St Ange and Acer each denied producing a class B drug.

St Ange was convicted after trial while Acer was cleared.

Farm - police dismantle the factory at the Old Rectory Care Home

The court heard Ozmen is Kurdish, and had travelled to the UK in 2000 having faced persecution by the Turkish authorities.

Dan Taylor, mitigating, said he had been subjected to “serious violence”, eventually achieving settled status in the UK in 2003.

He said Ozmen’s nephew was killed by the Turkish Army, before his father died and his partner left him, leaving him in a bedsit “with nothing”.

Ishan Dave, mitigating for St Ange, said his client had a “charitable” side, which involved sending money to support his father in Indonesia, as well as to other friends and family abroad.

He said St Ange had lost his job because of the Covid-19 pandemic and had been left “desperate”.

Mr Dave said: “Often the hardest times and the hardest circumstances force otherwise good people to make very foolish and disastrous decisions.”

Recorder Jeremy Benson QC sentenced Ozmen to four years imprisonment and St Ange to two and a half years.

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