Byker man who let cannabis farmers use home sentenced

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Police found 129 cannabis plants in a house in Byker (file photo)

A man who let cannabis growers turn his rented home into a drugs farm has been sentenced.

Dylan Gray, 31, took out the lease on a four-bedroom home in Newcastle where police found up to £53,000 worth of cannabis plants, the city’s crown court heard.

Putting the house right again had cost the owner more than £18,000 the court heard.

Gray was jailed for six months, suspended for 18 months with 150 hours unpaid work after admitting allowing premises to be used for the cultivation of Class B drugs.

Northumbria Police found 129 plants when they raided the terraced home on Welbeck Road in Byker in August 2022, the court heard.

All four bedrooms had been adapted into growing rooms with the home’s electricity supply also having been tampered with, prosecutors said.

In mitigation, the court heard Gray, of Avondale Rise in Byker, had lived at the home since March 2019 but ran into financial difficulties after the break up of a relationship and loss of his job.

‘Shut eyes’

Judge Carolyn Scott said Gray “sub-let” the home to dealers in exchange for the rent being paid as he wanted to keep the property in case his family wanted to move back in.

She said while he may not have known the extent of the farm it was “undoubtedly apparent” what was happening there was illegal and it was “in essence a commercial activity”.

Judge Scott told Gray he had been “reckless” and “knowingly shut [his] eyes”.

Gray was also ordered to pay £1,000 court costs but no compensation was demanded as the landlord was taking legal action against him to recoup the costs of the damage, the judge said.

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