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Police red-faced after tomatoes raid
Wednesday 26th August 2009, 11:30AM BST.
An informer was left looking a little dopey after tipping off police to cannabis plants growing outside a maisonette in the Black Country.
When officers swooped on the address in Wolverhampton all they found was a prize crop of tomatoes.
Police apologised to 50-year-old George Clark-Roden after realising the tip-off had been a mistake. Mr Clark-Roden explained today: “I answered a knock at the door to find a uniformed officer taking a look at the growth of flowers and shrubs outside my maisonette.”
“He said: ‘Do all these plants belong to you?’ I admitted that they did and noticed that he seemed to be paying particular attention to the tomatoes in pots by the front door.
“I asked him if he thought they were dope plants and he looked at me before confessing: ‘Well, we have had a complaint.’
“Luckily I had the perfect alibi because I was able to point out the ten tomatoes growing on the three plants in question.
“The policeman then asked to look around my home which I was happy to show him. Presumably he wanted to make sure I was not cultivating cannabis anywhere else. When he had satisfied himself that the place was clean of drugs, he apologised and we both had a good laugh about it.”
Mr Clark-Roden, an audio-visual artist from Upper Street, Tettenhall, landed in trouble after the seedlings given to him by girlfriend Sandra Meaney grew into three-feet high plants. They got too big for his studio and so he put them outside the front door in the glass-fronted communal foyer of the maisonette block, which acted like a greenhouse and made them grow even higher.
He added: “Unfortunately they were visible to anybody walking past and obviously somebody has gone by with a very fertile imagination. But no harm was done and I have got a great story to tell down the pub.”
West Midlands Police spokeswoman Jaspreet Jagdev said: “Police visited an address in Upper Street following reports of an odour of cannabis coming from a property but found nothing amiss.”
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Glad I haven’t got his short sighted busy body neighbours living next to me! at least he had a laugh about it.
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This is one of the best stories this year. It shows how people should, a policeman doing his job and a member of the public helping him, then both having a good laugh at the mis understanding.
I tip my hat to Mr Clark-Roden and to the Midland Police.
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cannabis is a harmless drug that cannot kill, why don’t the police concentrate on real criminals?
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And the real criminals Helen are the tobacconists and off licenses selling drugs that kill many people? Legal drugs, legal because the Government don’t care how many people die as long as they are making a nice tidy profit in the process.
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Perhaps the paranoid busy body who reported him should be done for wasting police time?
I wonder how many hours of police time are being wasted since the media hysteria surrounding cannabis ‘factories’ whilst REAL criminals get away.
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If the police are targeting cannabis factories to destroy a plant that cannot kill, why do they allow the breweries to continue to brew alcohol, a drug that kills around 30,000 per year in the UK alone?
Oh sorry I forgot, alcohol is a socially acceptable drug, children are raised believing it is harmless because the Government makes so much money from it, likewise with tobacco.
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Surely the Government would not allow legal drugs to be sold legally if they were dangerous and killed people?
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Tobacco kills around 100,000 in UK per year.
Alcohol kills around 30,000 in UK per year.
Cannabis kills around 0 in UK per year.
Even drugs prescribed by the doctor kill.
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Cannabis does not endanger anyone’s life, alcohol, tobacco, heroin and crack are the devils drugs. Avoid at all costs!
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As Bob Marley once said
“Herb is the healing of the nation, alcohol is the destruction of the nation”.
Jah Bless
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No surprise then why there is no much crime on our streets, the police are too busy busting innocent civilians for growing plants, no seatbelt whilst driving and riding push bikes on the pavement. The real criminals must be loving it and laughing at the police who pick on innocent members of the public.
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The police view somebody growing a couple of plants in the same light as a murderer, rapist, paedophile and that’s where the problem lies, they need to get with reality, they need to remember they are public SERVANTS.
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Cannabis is not a crime, it’s a herb, a plant, a medicine, a cure, how can nature be wrong? Herb makes people love, makes people rebel against war and that’s what the politicians are afraid of.
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It’s like we are living in Nazi Germany, if one chooses to grow a couple of harmless plants what business is it of the state?
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Cannabis promotes pro peace, just what the Government don’t want when they are involved in 2 illegal wars and more than likely want to kick off in a few other countries illegally in the very near future.
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Tomatoes or cannabis, what is the difference, they are both the fruit of plants. Tomatoes provide nourishment for the body whilst cannabis provides nourishment for the mind.
Why are the Government so against taking any kind of drug that alters ones consciousness, besides alcohol, and we all know the damage alcohol causes.
If there’s no victim there’s no crime. Cannabis was on the Earth long before man, and it shall remain here long after man has gone.
How else do you think we evolved from monkeys, monkeys started getting high, couldn’t be bothered climbing the trees no more and abra cadabra here we are today.
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The media myths implying the dangers of cannabis are beginning to wear very thin indeed.
You can fool some of the people some of the time but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.
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Typical of police, never there when needed, too busy targeting innocent bystanders handing out fines in a desperate attempt to meet their quotas.
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Glad many people are beginning to wake up.
Free the weed.
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If cannabis was decriminalised and alcohol made illegal the police would be out of a job.
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It’s okay for G.W pharmaceuticals to grow cannabis and supply is as medication (sativex) as they have lots of cash. One rule for us, another for them.
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A 6foot tomatoe fell on my mate and broke his leg
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