INVERNESS SHERIFF COURT: Former drug dealer who was part of £250k plan to flood the Highlands with heroin now caught with cannabis plants given final chance to change his ways
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A drug dealer who once was part of a plan to flood the Highlands with more than £250,000 worth of heroin has narrowly avoided jail for growing more than £14,000 in street value of 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.
Whitton was caught by by police following a three-month sting that finally caught up to him in 2002 when he was stopped by police on a motorcycle near Dalwhinnie with £39,000 worth of heroin on him.
The 54-year-old previously appeared at Inverness Sheriff Court representing himself and admitted cultivating cannabis at his home between April 4, 2020 and July 4, 2020.
The court heard that police received intelligence about his property and when they raided it, there was a strong smell of the drug.
He claimed he only had a few of the Class B plants for personal use due to medical issues but officers noticed leaves drying and other equipment in his home.
Sentence had been deferred for clarification of how much of the drug was found in Whitton’s property.
Fiscal depute Susan Love told Sheriff Eilidh MacDonald that the street value found amounted to approximately £14,285.
The sheriff said: “The value you gave to me is the value if the drug was sold by street dealers?
“I would calculate the value around £6000 - 1.2 kg.”
Whitton, who walks with a cane, gave his own mitigation in defence to Sheriff MacDonald.
Addressing the sheriff, he said: “I will say from the outset that this whole case was about three cannabis plants.
“Your honour I will add that the majority of the plants were found over a drying rack.
“The weight would have been a lot less if it had been dried and found seven days later.
“I would never have grown these plants if I knew it was going to get me into trouble.”
Whitton went on to say he had joined a “cannabis club” based in the UK and that he had been assured by club authorities that it was part of a tagged grow scheme that would not be targeted by police if the drug was being used medicinally.
However the scheme is not active in Scotland.
Whitton added: “I took a risk.
“I thought I would get a slap on the wrist.”
However Sheriff MacDonald reprimanded Whitton given his record for involvement in drug dealing.
She said: “As you know the court is taking this very seriously.
“You have a record of significant involvement in drug dealing.
“You may have thought that you were going to get away with it but you are not.”
The sheriff said, with that in mind, she also had to take into account the length of time since his previous conviction and that there appeared to have been no wider harm to the community as a result of his actions.
She imposed a community payback order of 270 hours of unpaid work as a direct alternative to custody.
Sheriff MacDonald warned Whitton that if he should fail to comply with the order she would jail him.
She added: “One chance and one chance only Mr Whitton.”
The drugs and growing equipment were all made subject to a confiscation order.
As he left the dock, Whitton said: “Thank you for the chance your honour.”
