Cannabis-growing gangster has sentence slashed

A gangster who grew 145,000-worth of drugs on a Tayside farm has seen his sentence slashed by 15 months.

Alan Fraser and his pal Manny Naveed were jailed in June after police discovered a cannabis factory at Birkenbush Farm, near Forfar.

More than 300 plants were found at the site where generators were running 24 hours a day.

The estimated value of the drugs were between 48,640 and 145,920.

Fraser was handed a sentence of 27 months in prison, but he was later given another 15 months after plants worth 18,000 were found at another location.

But the Tele can reveal that Fraser’s combined 42-month sentence has now been slashed to 27 months.

After an appeal at the High Court in Edinburgh last month, Lady Paton said the fact Fraser had been made redundant had not been considered enough and the cumulative sentence was “too high”.

In a statement of reasons delivered by Lady Paton, she said: “The appellant has worked full-time all his life.

“Regrettably his company was taken over, and the appellant became redundant.

“Suddenly, from being a steady wage-earner, he did not know where the next weekly payment was going to come from.

“Also, unfortunately…he had acquaintances involved in the drug culture.

“That resulted in his tending and producing cannabis plants, and being involved in their supply.”

She later said that the sheriff imposing the sentence for the 18,000 find had given “insufficient weight” to Fraser’s employment situation and quashed the sentence of 42 months to two years and three months.

At the original court hearing into Fraser and Naveed’s massive cannabis farm at Birkenbush Farm, it was revealed they had rented a large shed for 600 a month from farmers Derek Greenhill and his son Derek Jr. to grow the drugs.

But the farmers had been unaware of what was going on in the shed.

Derek Jr even had a sawn-off shotgun held to his neck by sidekicks of the gangsters when they warned him about reporting them to the police.