Václav David, 36, left the Klatovy court with an 18-month suspended sentence after a case in which he had faced up to ten years in prison.[1] At Tuesday’s main hearing he agreed a plea with prosecutor Marcela Šímová, and the court approved it.[1] Presiding judge Jan Kasal said the penalty fitted the circumstances and that David had no previous convictions.[1] Besides the 18-month suspended term, the court ordered that the marijuana he had grown be forfeited to the state.[1]
The year before, he grew six cannabis plants in a polytunnel in the garden in front of his house so he could make an ointment for a painful knee.[1] He told the court he bought ten seeds online after knee surgery, six plants came up and grew to nearly three metres, and he harvested and dried them, planning to make the ointment before Christmas.[1] Police, tipped off by a neighbour who also handed over his own photographs of the plants in a cold frame, arrived at the beginning of December, before David processed the crop.[1]
Šímová said she had weighed above all that he grew the cannabis to make medicinal ointments for his own use, though the variety had a very high content of the psychotropic substance, which is why a heavy sentence had been possible.[1] David said he had not known the plants contained so much of the banned substance.[1] The neighbour, a disability pensioner who shared the house, told investigators his wife could not breathe because of the smell while the plants dried in the attic.[1]
