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Community service for Harry Potter actor
Ben Bailey21 Jul 2009
A Harry Potter actor was ordered to undertake unpaid community work today after admitting growing cannabis.
District Judge Timothy Workman told the young man, who marked his birthday today, that the cannabis cultivation was on a small, but sophisticated scale.
He ordered him to undertake 120 hours of community service during a 15-minute hearing at City of Westminster Magistrates Court.
Mr Workman said: "Mr Waylett I accept that the cultivation of this cannabis was on a small scale, and this was not in any way a commercial venture on your part. Nevertheless you used a sophisticated growing system to do so.
"I give you credit for pleading guilty at the earliest opportunity, your co-operation with police and the fact that you are, until now, a man of good character.
"I propose to deal with this by imposing a sentence of 120 hours of unpaid work."
Waylett and his long-term friend John Innis, 20, were stopped under the Terrorism Act in Lodge Road, St John's Wood, west London, after the actor took a photograph of a police patrol as they drove past.
Innis' black Audi was searched and police discovered a butterfly lock-knife under the driver's seat and eight small bags of herbal cannabis.
When the officers examined the mobile phone on which the shots had been taken, they found images of cannabis plants which Waylett admitted were his.
They then visited his mother's house in Kilburn, north west London, and found 10 cannabis plants growing in a tent in his bedroom.
They found a further three bags of cannabis at a search of Innis' home in Mays Lane, Barnet, north London.
Waylett, of Messina Avenue, Kilburn, admitted production of cannabis at a hearing last week. Innis admitted possession of a knife and having 11 bags of cannabis.
The judge sentenced Innis to six weeks' custody in a young offenders' institution, and fined him £500. He also ordered that all of the drugs and cultivation equipment be destroyed.
Reader views (1)
What is more worrying?
That a young man should cultivate some grass for his own consumption or that the Police could arrest him under terrorism laws simply for taking a photograph of them?
- Bruce, London, 21/07/2009 14:25
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