It’s often the case, when shops go out of business, they’ll have a closing-down sale, where what’s left in stock is sold off for whatever they can get for it.
However, when the place that’s closing down is a cannabis farm which has been seized by police and is already hitting headlines, it’s fair to say they’re probably not having a closing-down sale, nor will they be giving away whatever’s left in stock.
Then again, as this hilarious footage shows, one guy thought he’d take his chances and pop over to the farm to see whether he could lay his hands on any bargains.
Check it out below:
Luckily for us, the hapless youth was caught on camera by a news crew that just happened to be doing a live broadcast outside.
The ridiculous moment was filmed live by KMTV, as local news anchor, Cameron Tucker, was giving a report about a couple who were caught growing cannabis inside a lovely little thatched cottage.
Yvette and Neil Hartley narrowly avoided prison, despite police finding a massive 88 cannabis plants growing at the £500,000 cottage in rural Hoath, Kent.
The pair were given a suspended sentence on Monday, May 16, but the local TV crew went to the cottage for the evening news the next day.
The young man, wearing a black t-shirt and shorts, strolled around the corner of the building carrying what could easily be mistaken for a certain illegal drug.
As soon as he realised he was on camera, the lad took off at a sprint, clinging on to his plant, and ran out of shot.
The news presenter, who turns around and watches the unlucky man, doesn’t quite know what to do after the suspicious moment, and calmly tries to carry on with the broadcast.
Kent Police are aware of the footage but are not aware of any new crimes related to it.
The couple who were growing the plants claimed they were producing it for their own use, and said their stash would be used to make cannabis oil to treat cancer.
Neil, 45, and Yvette, 48, both pleaded guilty to producing the Class B drug, but a sympathetic judge spared the pair jail, at Canterbury Crown Court on Monday, May 14.
Recorder Jonathan Davies took pity on the couple, who ran a ‘well established cannabis factory’ as part of ‘a much larger operation’, saying:
You risked their futures by your conduct because you must have known the consequences of what you were doing.
I am not sure if either of you has ever told the truth about this operation, which would have involved daily attention and was done for financial reasons.
I suspect the cannabis oil was just a smokescreen to cover up the nature of it.
Each of the growers was given a 22-month jail sentence, suspended for two years, and ordered to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work.
The couple, who have since moved, were also told they had to remain at their home under a 12-week night-time curfew order.
As for the lad with the massive plant, I guess we’ll never know…
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Charlie Cocksedge is a journalist and sub-editor at UNILAD. He graduated from the University of Manchester with an MA in Creative Writing, where he learnt how to write in the third person, before getting his NCTJ. His work has also appeared in such places as The Guardian, PN Review and the bin.