A Fife landlord watched from the dock as his former tenant admitted to jurors he grew a £50,000 cannabis crop in his Buckhaven flat.
Kenneth Dinse stood trial at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court after police found 81 plants at the Randolph Street flat he had bought at auction.
However, former soldier Christopher Ross told a jury he had been responsible for the cultivation.
He said he had used his handyman skills to bypass the electricity supply to power the “professional” plantation.
The charges against Dinse were deemed not proven and he walked free.
£50k of drugs found
Police officers raided the empty property on October 10 2019.
Detective Sergeant Kevin Plank told jurors the “expensive” rig of tents, lights and fans were indicative of a professional grower.
He said police judge plants on a low-end yield of three ounces each but those found in Buckhaven could have produced three times that.
Accordingly, at a minimum of £600 per plant, he valued the cultivation as being worth at least £48,600.
A further 165 grammes of cannabis bud was found inside, valued at £1,080.
Commenting on the bottles of plant nutrients found in the cultivation, he said: “You probably won’t get them in B&Q.
“They’re a bit more sophisticated.”
The police officer added: “It’s likely that an organised crime group is supporting this.”
Rented flat to former soldier
Dinse told jurors he bought the property in December 2017 for £29,000 and planned to renovate it to move in with his partner and child.
But when the relationship broke down after Dinse’s Huntington’s Disease diagnosis in August 2018, he decided to rent out the flat.
The jury heard Dinse let the flat to Christopher Ross after meeting him at a house party and the 34-year-old moved in in January 2019.
However, Dinse, 34, told the court he never got around to writing a lease agreement as he spent time in hospital after being assaulted in March 2019, leaving him with a broken jaw, which required metal plates.
He explained he accepted undeclared cash payments from his tenant at the end of each month and had no bank statements or paper trail.
Tenant’s confession
Mr Ross confessed to the court he had been running “a grow”, despite being warned he did not need to give evidence which could incriminate himself.
He said: “I never stayed there but I did rent it from him.
“I used it to try and make cannabis oil, to make a grow.
“I had intended to move into it but life changed.”
Edinburgh-based Mr Ross said he had previously made cannabis oil in small batches and bought £4,000 worth of equipment from a man in his local pub, who helped set it up.
“(Dinse) didn’t know until it got raided,” he said.
“He would have caught me (had he been inside).
“I went about once a week.”
Mr Ross added he knew how to bypass the property’s electricity meter after working as a handyman and did so by tweaking wires.
Glasses found beside grower’s guide
Inside the property, officers found Dinse’s glasses on a chair beside an instruction sheet on how to tend to the plants at different stages in their growth.
Forensic scientist Fiona Robertson explained DNA tests showed Dinse was “a billion times” more likely to be the wearer of the glasses than anyone else.
She said evidence of four DNA contributors – two being “main” contributors – was found inside work gloves seized in the flat.
Dinse explained he had just left them behind when he had been renovating the property.
After he was arrested in June 2020, Dinse gave a no comment interview to police but told jurors he was just anxious to get out of the police station.
He never mentioned his tenant until March 2022.
Acquitted
After a three-day trial before Sheriff Robert More, a jury of 10 men and five women acquitted Dinse.
The majority of jurors found it not proven that he produced or was concerned in the supply of cannabis and all found him not guilty of tampering with the electric meter.
He had denied the charges, offering a defence of incrimination.
The court heard Dinse still lives at the property a few days a week, as well as at a family property in Edinburgh.
He explained he saved up for the property by working as a hotel manager and in his mother’s cafe in Edinburgh, where he is still employed.
When he was a teenager, Dinse was jailed in the capital after he covered his face with fishnet tights before stabbing a love rival “several times.”
He was sentenced to 16 months at HMP Edinburgh as an 18-year-old in 2007 after his victim recognised him through his makeshift disguise.
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