Jail for 'pain relief' cannabis user caught growing own supply three times
Bronnagh Brannigan was sentenced at Ipswich Crown Court Picture: CHARLOTTE BOND - Credit: Charlotte Bond
A cannabis user, repeatedly caught growing his own supply of the drug for 'pain relief', has been jailed for eight months.
Johnny Carrick was caught growing cannabis at his address three times in the space of seven months last year.
On the final occasion, the 47-year-old was also caught with a folding knife in his jeans' pocket.
A judge at Ipswich Crown Court said Carrick had "absolutely no regard, whatsoever" for authority before sending him straight to jail on Thursday.
Carrick had admitted three counts of producing cannabis, one of possessing cannabis and one of carrying a bladed article in a public place at an earlier hearing on January 11.
Prosecutor Nicola May had explained how police executed a warrant at his address in Castleford Close, Thetford, and found 79 cannabis plants at various stages of growth, along with equipment including heat lamps, on January 7 last year.
Carrick was still under investigation when officers found another cannabis plant and tray of cannabis seedlings at the same address on June 3.
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He was again released under investigation, and again arrested on August 25, after being found with a folding knife in his pocket and offcuts of cannabis at his feet in a car near the address, where police then found another plant and a pot containing 1.97grammes of the drug in a bedroom.
Carrick was convicted of knife possession in July 2002 – making him liable for a mandatory minimum six-month jail sentence for two qualifying offences.
He was also in breach of a two-year conditional discharge from July 2018 for stealing a bike and breaching a suspended sentence for fraud – and in breach of another two-year conditional discharge from October 2018 for theft.
Lynne Shirley, mitigating, said Carrick had been using the cannabis to relieve pain from an industrial accident and that the knife was a tool for deadheading the plants.
She said Carrick, who was also addicted to heroin and prescribed methadone at the time, had since been living in supported accommodation on a farm run by a rehabilitation charity in Diss.
Judge Rupert Overbury told Carrick the offences, in combination, were so serious that only a custodial sentence could be passed.
