10:10pm Sunday 14th March 2010
A teenager on a suspended sentence has again escaped a jail term after being caught growing cannabis in his bedroom.
A policeman walking past Jamie Osbourne’s house spotted the pot plant which had been put on the windowsill to catch the sun and help it grow.
The 19-year-old committed the offence while on a suspended sentence for smashing a bottle over a man’s head in a bar room incident.
A judge heard that as well as re-offending, Osbourne had also failed to turn up to do his community service.
But Judge David Ticehurst decided not to activate the jail term, instead extending the length of the suspension and telling him to do more unpaid work.
Rachel Marshall, prosecuting, told Swindon crown court how a police officer spotted the cannabis plant in the window at the house in October last year.
He went to the door of the house in Oakhurst and the occupier confirmed the plant, which was over a foot tall, was in Osbourne’s bedroom.
When he was interviewed soon after he told officers that he had been given the plant by a friend and had it in that window so it would catch the sun and grow better.
He told them he wasn’t sure what he was doing was illegal.
Miss Marshall said Osbourne was on a nine month suspended sentence from May last year after admitting actual bodily harm.
Osbourne brought a bottle down on the head of an acquaintance in the Incognito bar in Swindon following a disagreement.
The court heard that he had been told to do 120 hours of community service but had only completed 86 and a half having failed to attend to do the work.
This was breached in August last year after he failed to comply with a curfew which was extended as a punishment.
Osbourne, of Callington Road, pleaded guilty to cultivating cannabis and being in breach of a suspended sentence.
Andrew Hobson, defending, said one of the times his client had failed to turn up for community service was because he had been assaulted.
He said the fresh allegation of growing cannabis was not the most serious offence and he would have just smoked what the plant produced himself.
Passing sentence the judge asked Osbourne if he had ever been to prison before, to which replied from the dock he had not.
He said he was extending the nine month sentence, which was suspended until May 2010 by a year. He was also ordered to do 80 hours of unpaid work rather than the 33 outstanding.
The judge also imposed an 18 week sentence suspended for a year for the drugs offence and told him he was reserving any breach to himself.
“You will see me if you mess up again and if you see me you will end up in prison,” he told him.
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