Eleven men, mostly from the West Midlands, were convicted after a five-month Staffordshire Police investigation into what officers believed was being set up as one of the country’s largest cannabis factories.[1] They were found guilty by a jury at Stafford Crown Court in the week of 11 November 2011.[2]

Police had raided the farm at Castle Bytham, Lincolnshire, in 2010 and found more than 800 plants alongside 1,600 empty buckets prepared for cultivation.[2][1] The gang had spent about £1.4m adapting huge barns with generators, fans, lighting and ventilation for an operation police said could yield about £2.75m of cannabis a year.[2][1]

Desmond Bayliss, 40, a former nightclub doorman from Toxteth who had acted in the Channel 4 drama-documentary Shooters, was found working at the farm during the raid and was convicted alongside the farm’s owner, Iain Brown, 60, of Chichester, and nine others.[2] All eleven were to be sentenced at a later date.[2] A Staffordshire Police detective said the group had criminal links across the country and that officers had seized significant amounts of cash for action under proceeds-of-crime law.[2]