This post, authored by an anonymous source, is republished with permission from The Daily Sceptic
For the last four years my husband and I have owned and let a five-bedroom flat in a large Scottish city a few hours from where we live. We’re not property tycoons – far from it. My husband is a church minister, which means we live in a manse (vicarage if you’re south of the border), allowing us to rent our property instead.
As happens, tenants come and tenants go, and last year we found ourselves letting to an Asian family. We asked our new tenants for financial statements and recommendations, none of which raised any red-flags. So ‘Kenneth’ (or a chap we believed to be Kenneth), his girlfriend and cousin moved in.
They seemed like the ideal tenants. The rent came in like clockwork and as we regularly checked in with our tenants, no issues were raised. In November we decided it might be sensible to do a quick inspection of the flat and to meet our new tenants.
Kenneth, a skinny and youthful bloke of Chinese heritage, happily met us at the flat and allowed us in to check up on things. Asides from the flat being sparse of personal effects, it was being well taken care of. Conversation flowed, he seemed decent. There was no indication of any strange activity within the flat itself. Back home we went, reassured our flat was being taken care of.
The bliss of landlording, however, didn’t last long. One Friday evening in February I received a call from our downstairs neighbour. Sheepishly, our neighbour expressed concern that there was something odd going on inside the flat. She didn’t want to raise alarm bells unnecessarily but her guess was our tenants were growing weed, having monitored the flat for a month. The windows were sealed with the curtains constantly drawn; the street stank of weed; construction noises seemed to be taking place at night; and our neighbours never saw our tenants.
When disaster, or potential disaster strikes, you like to think you can ring the police for help. 999, we’re taught, from our earliest of days. We all like to believe that if we need them, if we become the victim of a crime, the police will step in. Well, we’ve learned the hard way that this isn’t necessarily the case.
We considered the facts and decided the best plan was to phone the police. Cultivating cannabis, as far as we were aware, was a crime. Ergo, phone the police. I got through to an operator, explained the situation, and was told someone would phone me back shortly once a police plan was in place. Days passed and we heard nothing, so eventually I phoned the police back to ask for an update. I was told at this point that no officers would be attending the flat because a warrant couldn’t be secured without more evidence. Bemused, I asked the operator how more evidence could be secured without someone attending the scene. She suggested more local residents phoned in their concerns. Unknown to me at this time, multiple neighbours had already reported the activity in the flat, including the headmistress of a local school.
The conclusion of the conversation was that we would have to organise our own inspection of the flat, regardless of the potential danger posed by interrupting criminal activity. I asked the operator how this would work given that we had to give our tenants a 48-hour warning window of inspection, suggesting this might well tip the accused drug farmers off allowing them to scarper or cause us harm on arrival. The response from the operator was akin to a shrug of the shoulders. No solutions proposed or help given.
So, we phoned our tenants and they reluctantly agreed to an inspection 48 hours later. I was heavily pregnant, so my husband travelled to the flat with some family members to provide safety in numbers.
We had been holding out hope that our neighbour might have blown the strange antics out of proportion, and it was perhaps just a bit of weed smoking or the cultivation of a plant or two. As my husband rang the doorbell and gained entry, these hopes were dashed.
Forget a couple of plants: the flat had been converted into a large-scale cannabis farm and trashed in the process. Kenneth and his devious posse had, of course, scarpered.
Discoveries included:
- An overwhelming smell of cannabis
- Soil all over the place
- Compost bags with plant roots
- Bin bag after bin bag of cannabis leaf
- Plastic coverings on floors and windows
- Hundreds of hooks on ceilings
- Rewiring
- Industrial fans and lights
- Furniture moved into two rooms, leaving the other five rooms for cultivation and ventilation
- Radiators and doors off
- Hole in ceiling for ventilation
- Bottles of chemicals/fertiliser
- Extra locks on the door
- General trashing
- And signs that they had scarpered e.g. food left in saucepans on the hob
My husband immediately phoned Police Scotland. Officers attended the scene, expressing their shock at what had taken place. They assured my husband they were taking control of the property and organised for an emergency electrician and locksmith to attend. They were in no doubt about the illegal activity that had taken place in the flat. Whilst it was frustrating Kenneth hadn’t been caught in the act, at least the police now seemed to be taking things seriously.
As the police started collecting evidence and statements were taken, there was an abrupt tone shift. Quite out of the blue my husband was informed that in fact no crime had been committed, as no cannabis bud had been discovered. It was, therefore, no longer a police matter. Whilst it looked like a cannabis farm and smelt like a cannabis farm (and was an actual cannabis farm), the absence of the cannabis bud (the stuff that is ready to smoke) technically meant no crime had been committed. And just like that, the police retreated, leaving my husband with a trashed flat and an abandoned cannabis farm.
We spent the next few days trying to figure out what was most outrageous: being victims of this horrible crime or feeling completely abandoned by the police. Our flat had been savaged, the property damaged, and yet apparently no crime had been committed. Whilst we knew the police weren’t perfect, we had maintained that when things got really bad, obviously bad, they would be there to protect you. How far from true this turned out to be.
The following weekend my husband travelled back to the flat to start the clear-up. Kindly, a group of about 10 blokes from church stepped in to help us, a kindness we’ll never forget. Within minutes of being in the flat, one of the chaps made a discovery, which apparently had been ‘missed’ the week before. Sitting in an open box was a huge bag of cannabis bud, a.k.a. sellable weed. Not being our area of expertise we did a little digging. It turns out just this one bag would be about £10,000-15,000 worth. How had the police not found this during their initial visit?
So, once again my husband phoned the police. As previously mentioned, I was heavily pregnant so had been left behind for obvious reasons. You really don’t want a heavily pregnant lady wandering around a cannabis farm offering to lend a hand. I was unaware of the discovery, so when the police chapped at my door (in another large Scottish city hours from the scene of the crime) asking to speak to my husband, I was somewhat surprised and concerned.
Confused, I asked the police a few questions and soon established they had been sent out to investigate a cannabis farm. I asked what address they had been given. They read out our flat’s address, to which I pointed out was on the other side of the country. A Homer Simpson ‘D’oh’ moment if ever there was one.
They looked embarrassed but not particularly bothered: “Clearly we’re in the wrong place.” I managed to get through to my husband who explained what had been found, following which a police officer did actually turn up to investigate.
Upon seeing the bag of weed the attending officer swore loudly in disbelief. She took the bag, a box of baby cannabis plants that had also been found, and said she would inform the officers who attended the week before and update us accordingly.
Months passed and we heard nothing from the police. The discovery of the cannabis bud didn’t seem to spark an investigation or convince them that indeed a crime had been committed. Who knows what happened to Kenneth.
Not only had we been seriously let down by the police, but they had missed the opportunity of a serious drugs bust. Whilst police arrest little old ladies for praying outside abortion clinics and interrogate people for their social media posts, drug lords roam free on British streets. This horrifying reality should make us all shudder.
Strangely, we did receive a text message from a police officer in yet another Scottish city a few months after, asking for more details on the case and saying that the bag of weed we had found and handed in had been destroyed whilst in police custody. I wonder how they destroyed it?
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