A MAN has been jailed for producing 136 cannabis plants worth potentially more than £100,000 from a property in Bournemouth.

Kosmas Lampros, 29, of Milton Keynes, pleaded guilty to producing cannabis from a property in Cleveland Road in April 2021.

He pleaded on the basis he was working for others as a gardener tending to the plants, expected to make around £3,000 for his work.

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Appearing at Bournemouth Crown Court for sentencing on Wednesday, June 29, prosecutor Tom Acworth said police attended the address for a separate matter shortly before 2am on April 2, 2021.

Lampros opened the door but refused to let the officers in. He then ran towards the rear of the address and threw himself out a kitchen window into the garden, where he was detained.

Inside the property, officers found the three-bedroom detached house was being used as a cannabis factory which had 72 small plants, 27 medium plants and 37 large plants of different cultivation.

Mr Acworth said a drug expert estimated between 3,800g and 110,000g could be produced from the factory, worth between £38,000 and £114,000.

Lampros told police in interview he was looking after the cannabis for someone else, having been paid £250 upfront with the promise of around £3,000 when the plants were harvested.

Mitigating, Paul Walker said the defendant, who had no previous convictions, agreed to work as a gardener for the factory after running into financial difficulty as a result of the Covid pandemic.

He said he was sending the money back to his family in Albania and accepted he had been “stupid and wrong”.

Mr Walker moved to persuade the judge to impose a suspended sentence.

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However, Judge Jonathan Fuller QC sentenced Lampros to two years and six months imprisonment, saying he could not suspend it due to the seriousness of the case.

He said: “You knew you were involved with something unlawful which was going to yield those who set it up substantial profits.

“You were in there for some time because you would have had to have been to get the few thousand pounds which was going to make it worthwhile.

“Although your role was to a degree limited perhaps compared to others, it was an essential role and that’s why it is regarded as significant, notwithstanding the significant financial reward you would have received.”

Judge Fuller QC also ordered the drugs and equipment be forfeited and destroyed.