A drug dealer who had been jailed for helping to flood the Highlands with more than £250,000 worth of heroin has returned to court for producing cannabis.
Inverness Sheriff Court heard Steven Whitton is “back to his old ways” after the class B drug was found at his home.
The 54-year-old was jailed for four years at the High Court in Edinburgh in 2004 after being snared as part of a police operation codenamed Nemesis.
He was part of a gang of six men from the central belt and the Highlands who were jailed for a total of 45 years.
During today’s appearance, Whitton represented himself and admitted cultivating the drug at his home in Pinewood Drive, Inverness, between April 4 2020 and July 4 2020.
Fiscal depute Robert Weir told Sheriff Eilidh Macdonald that police received intelligence about his property and when they raided it there was a strong smell of the drug.
“He invited them in and volunteered: ‘I have two ounces of pot but no plants.’ But in a bedroom officers saw leaves drying and other equipment but no plants growing,” Mr Weir said.
‘You appear to have gone back to your old ways’
Various amounts of the drug were found in tubs and jars, with Whitton telling police he was growing it for his own use.
Sheriff Macdonald criticised the author of the prosecution’s narrative of facts – not Mr Weir.
She said: “It was unnecessarily complicated and it gives me no idea of the total value.”
Mr Weir said he would undertake to do a calculation. The written narrative appeared to show that individual street values of more than £16,000.
Sheriff Macdonald told Whitton that “given your history, you appear to have gone back to your old ways” and advised him to seek legal advice before sentencing, in view of his previous convictions.
She deferred sentence until September 26 for a background report and continued Whitton’s bail.