Cambridge Crown Court sentenced Neil Badcock, 45, of Linden Way, Haddenham, to seven years in prison on 2 October 2013 for the county’s largest cannabis factory, closing a case that began with a raid three years earlier.[1] Badcock, who owned the land and the barn at Tree Farm in Hill Row Causeway where the factory ran, had been found guilty the previous day of conspiracy to produce cannabis.[2][1]
The factory’s manager, Kevin Hart, 43, of Elm Close, Huntingdon, had pleaded guilty in March 2012 and was jailed for ten years; on 12 July 2013 a judge ordered him to pay back 1 million pounds in criminal gains, the largest confiscation order then made in Cambridgeshire.[1] Hart had conceded a criminal benefit of 8.5 million pounds.[1] Six others pleaded guilty and were sentenced at the same court in August 2011: Michael Orchard to four years and four months, Craig Green to four years, Kyle Green to three years and three months, Matthew Wood to three years, Trevor Richardson to two years and eight months and Marcus Burton to two years and six months.[1]
Cambridgeshire Police had raided the barn in a morning operation on 8 July 2010 and first reported about 5,000 plants with an estimated street value of 1.75 million pounds, calling it the largest cultivation site found in the county.[3] Later court accounts put the total at 7,655 plants in various stages of growth in one large barn, run as a business with staff paid wages, with a yearly yield of about 8 million pounds.[1] Hart and seven others were arrested and charged with conspiracy to produce cannabis.[1] In July 2016 Badcock was separately ordered to pay back 425,000 pounds within three months, facing four more years in prison with the sum still owed if he failed.[2]
