A third man arrested as part of a local police operation that netted more than 200 mature cannabis plants in the central Shoalhaven has escaped a jail sentence despite pleading guilty to cultivating the drug.
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Andrew Bruce Newman, 35 of Sanctuary Point, was one of four men arrested during the almost four-month operation in relation to a cannabis plantation in the Yerriyong area, south west of Nowra in April last year.
The Proactive Deployment Unit from South Coast Police District started investigations into large-scale cannabis cultivation in the Jerrawangala and adjoining state forests south-west of Nowra.
On April 3, local police - accompanied by officers from the State Crime Command Drug and Firearm Squad and other specialist units - conducted several searches of bushland, finding 203 mature cannabis plants, with an estimated potential street value of $400,000.
The plants were found near Turpentine Road at Parma and after being were identified were destroyed.
The next day officers executed search warrants on a number of properties at Sanctuary Point.
Newman was captured in surveillance photographs tending and watering plants at plots in the Jerrawangala State Forest and Parma Creek Nature Reserve.
Newman disputed facts over the number of plants the Crown alleged he was cultivating.
The Crown stated it was 137 of the 204 seized plants, Newman maintained it was only 77 plants.
Court papers said he admitted to using cannabis four to five times a day.
In Nowra District Court, Judge Warwick Hunt also took a charge of participating in a criminal group into consideration before placing Newman on a nine-month intensive corrections order instead of a jail term, meaning he can spend his sentence within the community.
Two other men arrested as part of the operation have also been sentenced.
Disability support pensioner, Trevor Arthur Perry, 57, pleaded guilty to two counts of possessing a prohibited drug, possessing a prohibited weapon, supplying and cultivating a prohibited plant, while a charge of possessing ammunition without a licence was also taken into account in his sentencing.
Two further charges of possessing a prohibited plant, taking part in the cultivation of a prohibited plant and participating in a criminal group were withdrawn and dismissed.
In Nowra Local Court on March 5, Magistrate Gabriel Fleming placed Perry on an 18-month intensive corrections order, meaning he will serve his sentence in the community, and ordered he undertake 100 hours of community service.
A co-accused, Rodney Glen Fisher, 57, pleaded guilty to participating in a criminal group, with Magistrate Fleming placing him on an 18-month community corrections order and ordering he perform 150 hours of community service.
A further co-accused, Michael Wayne Jones, 54, is still before the courts and will reappear in Nowra District Court on August 12.
Read more: Crime/Court
