Cannabis growing Oldbury fighter spared jail (From Halesowen News)

Cannabis growing Oldbury fighter spared jail

9:16am Thursday 23rd October 2008 in News

A former professional Oldbury boxer who started growing his own cannabis to ease pain from a serious back injury has been spared jail.

Andrew Cosnett, who turned to boxing after coming out of the Army, was found to have over 20 cannabis plants growing at his Hartlebury Road home.

The 30-year-old admitted cultivating and possessing cannabis and was yesterday given a six month jail term suspended for a year. He was also made the subject of a 12 month Supervision Order.

Howard Searle, prosecuting, told Wolverhampton Crown Court police went to Cosnett's home on another matter and they smelled the cannabis.

It was accepted, he stressed, that Cosnett was growing the cannabis for his personal use and it was not a professional operation.

Mr Searle said: "There was not a degree of professionalism about the operation.

"Only one window in the house had been blanked out, there were very few lights to assist in the production and a number of the seedlings had died."

Tom Walkling, defending, told the court Cosnett suffered his back injury when he fell down a flight of concrete stairs in 2006 - just three years after becoming a pro-fighter.

He said Cosnett had been in constant pain since the accident and had been taking "huge" quantities of pain killers which had after-effects.

Mr Walkling said: "He discovered smoking cannabis helped relieve the symptoms of his pain without the unpleasant side effects left behind by the pain killers.”

Cosnett, he went on, was in difficult financial circumstances and opted to grow his own supply because he was unable to buy the cannabis he needed.

He said Cosnett knew he had made a foolish decision - but needed the controlled drug to ease the terrible discomfort from his spinal problems.