Care home residents watch their garden grow after cops cannabis drugs bust

A care home in Birmingham has recently benefited from a generous donation of soil and gardening supplies from the Cannabis Disposal Team at West Midlands Police, following the discovery of nearly £1m worth of cannabis plants being cultivated in a nearby disused school.

Police raided the former Al-Hira School on Clifton Road, Balsall Heath in March following an anonymous tip-off, leading them to discover the plants with a street value of more than £900,000 which is one of the biggest ever cannabis factory discoveries in the West Midlands.

Clifton House provides accommodation and care to up to 30 residents and is located just a couple of minutes walk from where the plants were found growing.

Speaking about the donation, registered manager at Clifton House, Helda Tonks said: “Our resident gardener Frank Hopkins is over the moon with the donation and is always happy to accept any donations for his garden. He can be seen out there in all weathers and is very protective of his garden. He said it was fantastic and cannot wait for more.

“So far, we have used the soil for raised beds, our existing garden beds and our vegetable patch and we also received pots which we are going to use around the garden.

'Fantastic to see confiscated goods being put to good use'

“I personally think it is a fantastic idea. It makes a change that the goods confiscated from the scene of crime are put to good use in the community - minus the cannabis. It helps local communities as we have to fundraise for all our things and this can be difficult at times.”

Frank Hopkins has been at the home for a couple of years and after years of alcoholism, uses gardening as a means to occupy himself, spending as much time outside as possible, maintaining the outdoor spaces at the home.

He said: “I look after the garden here, and sometimes buy plants myself, though we do occasionally receive donations from other people. I'm always very grateful to receive donations as it allows me to make the area outside nice for people to sit outside and enjoy a cup of tea and admire the plants.”

Cannabis factories are found across the West Midlands, many of them ordinary homes or disused buildings, carefully converted to cultivate the plant.

The West Midlands Cannabis Disposal Team work to dismantle cannabis factories, collecting evidence to secure convictions and disposing of leftover equipment, recycling and making use of the redundant equipment used to grow the plants within the local community to ensure it does not go to waste.

The cannabis plants are burnt at a ‘waste-to-energy’ plant overseen by uniformed officers to ensure that the drug doesn’t make it back onto the streets.

Get satisfaction from turning bad to good

Manager of West Midlands Police Cannabis Disposal team, Mike Hall commented: “We try to donate as much and as often as we can. We regularly donate to care homes, churches or community groups even food banks who grow veg. Clifton House care home is a hundred yards away from a very big criminal cannabis discovery. We felt that the local community deserved something back, after all nobody wants to live near drug dealers.

“We donated soil and gardening equipment to the care home and they are working on making the outside space as lovely as the inside space is, which is something we absolutely support. In our role we often meet the more negative elements of society so engaging with nice people is of real benefit to us to, we are only human too and we certainly do get satisfaction from turning bad to good. We do that via growing equipment seized from criminals and giving to those that make good use of it.”

The Cannabis Disposal Team also work with the Kingstanding Neighbourhood Team, visiting local people who may benefit from the reclaimed gardening supplies, giving them the chance to contribute to the look of their environment by providing them with soil and pots to grow flowers and brighten up their streets and front gardens.

Sergeant Helen Carver of the Kingstanding Neighbourhood Team at West Midlands Police commented: “The Kingstanding Neighbourhood team have worked alongside the force’s Cannabis Disposal Team several times now in giving something back to our community.

“We have delivered several bags of soil, watering cans and gardening tools to community members such as schools for their gardening clubs, and supported housing for the elderly to help with their hanging basket projects and an over 60s gardening club to support their brilliant ‘grow-your-own’ scheme here in Kingstanding.

“This is an excellent way to give something back to the community and at the same time offer our support to these groups to ensure their fantastic work continues.”

HM Prison Birmingham

The Cannabis Disposal Team also donate to HM Prison Birmingham, allowing prisoners aged over 65 to have access to soil and gardening equipment as part of the prisons therapy and rehabilitation programme. Only unopened bags of soil and compost are donated, while they are carefully screened for mobile phones and sim cards when they arrive at the prison.

The rehabilitation programme, has so far been a great success, giving prisoners the chance to turn the supplies into hanging baskets and window boxes for the local community.

Director for HMP Birmingham, Pete Small, said: “We encourage prisoners to take every opportunity to give something back to the local community. The plants grown by HMP Birmingham prisoners are used by the Winson Green in Bloom project, to improve the area and save local taxpayers’ money.

“These soil bags seized by West Midlands Police would have supported criminal activity and it is gratifying that they now help to provide prisoners with work as well as brighten the streets and communities outside the prison walls.

“We are grateful to West Midlands Police for this contribution to the garden project.”

Mr Hall added: “People, especially the senior members of the community seem especially pleased with what we are able to give. It provides the means for people who have possible worked all their life to continue to be active and to work towards producing something. We hear it is very satisfying to see all your hard work develop in to beautiful flowers or tasty vegetables. To put some time in each day to nurturing the plants seems to be a fantastic way of providing gentle exercise and maintaining an interest in things outside of the routine.

“We can only donate what we find of course so it is limited to what we can lay our hands on, even though we are a police drug team, we are human and are fully aware of the misery drugs can bring to a community so by bringing some good from that, we ourselves get to spend a small amount of time with the people we actually come to work for.”

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