this couple who ran a cannabis factory and spent their fortune on helping poor African families and charities have been jailed.
Michael and Susan instead of pocketing the money, they
spent a large proportion of it on people in a Kenyan village - paying
for life-saving surgery, computers for an eye hospital and schooling for
poor children.
When the pair, from Lincolnshire,
were not helping people in Kenya, they were living an incredible double
life selling wholesale kilo deals of cannabis to a local drugs baron.
Although the Judge appeared impressed with their good work, they were jailed for three years at Lincoln Crown Court.
Prosecutor Jon Dee told the court Foster and Cooper’s life was the 'most unusual cannabis growing case of its type'.
He added: 'This couple were both in their 60s and were of previous good character.
'For six years they produced cannabis in significant quantities. This was a professional and commercial set up.'
Gareth
Wheetman, representing Foster, said. 'The very fact they were
repeatedly flying off to Kenya in itself required money but the evidence
demonstrates much of the money was being put to charitable and good
use.'
Cooper’s lawyer, Chris Milligan, added: 'Susan Cooper is a good person who has done a bad thing. There is another side to her.
'When a young adult called Wilson got
a gangrenous infection in his leg he was given two days to live. She
paid for that treatment.'
The
court heard how the couple were regular visitors to a village in the
Kwale district, near the tourist coastal town of Mombasa, Kenya.
The couple told police much of the money they illegally obtained was spent helping the local people they met.
Jailing the couple, Judge Sean Morris told them: 'You were growing it on a significant scale, jetting off to Kenya on it.
'Lots of money was going into your bank accounts, over a number of years hundreds of thousands went in.
'I
am sure you were doing good things in Kenya with your drugs money,
whether that was to appease your consciences I can only speculate.'
In 2004 Foster and Cooper converted
two buildings on their farm in Long Sutton, Lincolnshire, into a
cannabis factory, where they grew hundreds of illegal plants and sold
kilos of the drug to a local dealer.
Police
only caught the couple by accident when an officer, who happened to
stumble across their home while pursuing a burglar nearby, smelled the
cannabis.
Inside police found 159 cannabis plants, worth an estimated £20,000. Two of the buildings
had been converted into a growing room and drying room.
Officers also
recovered £20,000 in £1,000 bundles from a carrier bag.
Foster and Cooper were arrested and interviewed following the raid in June 2010.
Mr Dee added: 'At the time this couple were completely off the police radar. They were caught completely by chance.'
When
the officer knocked on the farmhouse door Cooper, a divorcee, answered.
She replied 'Yes I do' when the officer asked if she knew why he was
there.
The couple admitted four charges of producing cannabis and a single offence of possessing criminal cash.
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