INVERNESS SHERIFF COURT: Drug dealer found flooding the Highlands with heroin back in court for dope find

A drug dealer who had been jailed for helping to flood the Highlands with over £250,000 worth of heroin was back in court for producing cannabis.

Steven Whitton of Pinewood Drive, Inverness was imprisoned for four years at the High Court in Edinburgh in 2004 after being part of a gang of six snared in a police operation in 2002 called "Nemesis."

The accused from the central belt and the Highlands were jailed for a total of 45 years.

The 54 year old appeared at Inverness Sheriff Court representing himself and admitted cultivating the drug at his home between April 4, 2020 and July 4, 2020.

Fiscal depute Robert Weir told Sheriff Eilidh Macdonald that police received intelligence about his property and when they raided it, there was a strong smell of the drug.

"He invited them in and volunteered: 'I have two ounces of pot but no plants.' But in a bedroom officers saw leaves drying and other equipment but no plants growing."

Mr Weir said there were various amounts of the drug in tubs and jars which were recovered, with Whitton telling police he was growing it for his own use.

Sheriff Macdonald criticised the author of the prosecution's narrative of facts - not Mr Weir.

She said: "It was unnecessarily complicated and it gives me no idea of the total value."

Mr Weir said he would undertake to do a calculation. The written narrative appeared to show that individual street values of over £16,000.

Sheriff Macdonald told Whitton that "given your history, you appear to have gone back to your old ways" and advised him to seek legal advice before sentencing, in view of his previous convictions.

She deferred sentence until September 26 for a background report and continued Whitton's bail.