Derbyshire pensioner said cannabis had been missed when police raided his home five years earlier

Brian Donald Walwyn, 70, admitted possession of the Class B drug when he appeared before Chesterfield Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday, January 7.

But the court heard that Walwyn, who had to stand closer to the bench because he was struggling to hear proceedings, had been jailed in 2015 for his part in a large scale cannabis cultivation operation at his property.

Prosecuting, Becky Allsop, said that police had raided Walwyn’s home in Bath Road, Buxton on December 9 while they were carrying out a search in relation to other matters when they discovered the drug - with a street value of £100 - on a shelf.

“He alleged that the cannabis was left behind from a previous search here was was convicted of cultivation in 2015,” she said.

Mitigating, Karl Meakin said that Walwyn had been sucked into the drugs trade because of social isolation and had agreed for a property to be used to cultivate the drugs.

He added that the pensioner struggled with alcohol addiction in lived in ‘squalid conditions’ at his home.

He said: “The cannabis resin was discovered during a search of his property in relation to another matter which has not been proceeded with. He does have a previous conviction for cannabis cultivation, and another for theft not long after the Berlin Wall came down.

“He does maintain that the cannabis was left over from the last decade, when he was involved with cannabis, when there had been a fairly large grow in one of his properties.

“Social Services have been involved with him and he is a registered alcoholic, and concerning the conditions of how he lives, I don’t think ‘squalid’ is an unfair description.”

Walwyn was fined £80 and ordered to pay £85 in costs and a £32 victim surcharge. Magistrates also ruled that the drugs be forfeited and destroyed.