Judge rejects back pain claim of cannabis grower caught snowboarding

Keith DelaraBond, of St Nicholas Road, Radford Semele, had pleaded guilty to producing a quantity of cannabis at his home between January 2009 and June 2010.

As we reported at a previous hearing, prosecutor Vicki Lofrese told Warwick Crown Court that when police raided the 34-year-old’s home last year, they found 32 plants, 32 root balls and some leaves and cuttings, which indicated there had been a previous harvest. Each 32-plant crop could yield cannabis with a street value of up to £4,000 – and between January 2009 and the raid he could have produced cannabis worth £21,500.

When DelaraBond was interviewed he claimed that he used cannabis to relive pain because he suffered from nerve damage in his back after a motorcycle accident and sciatica.

But Miss Lofrese played video clips in court that police had seized of him snowboarding in Canada between January and April 2009. There were also photographs of him on other active holidays in France, Scotland and Turkey.

Judge Faber said: “I do not believe him. I do not believe a man who suffers so greatly from back pain would undertake such rigorous training.

“I am equally driven to the conclusion that his assertion he did not intend to supply cannabis for financial gain is totally untrue.”