A man who set up a cannabis factory in a Spalding flat to pay for his wife’s cancer treatment has failed to get his four-year jail term cut.
Charles Binns (49), was caught red-handed trimming £20,000 worth of crop in the flat in Pinchbeck Road he had kitted out as a drugs den to fund his wife’s brain surgery.
His wife later committed suicide after Binns, of Deene Court, Peterborough, was jailed for four years at Lincoln Crown Court last September.
He admitted producing the class B drug.
But three top judges at London’s Appeal Court have rejected a sentence challenge by the widower – saying the case was “very sad” but his appeal was “unarguable”.
During Binns’ trial last September, Lincoln Crown Court was told that officers raided the property and found Binns and another man Kris Stimson cropping the plants.
Stimson, of Greenham, Peterborough, was given a 12-month community order with 180 hours of unpaid work.
Phil Howes, prosecuting, said: “It was a sophisticated operation, capable of producing a significant quantity of cannabis for commercial use.
“There was an air filter extraction system, lighting systems, timer switches and a variety of chemicals.”
More than 100 cannabis plants were found, capable of producing an estimated £70,000 worth of the drug.
Judge Michael Heath told Binns: “This commercial enterprise was your own idea. You set it up on a commercial scale with the expectation of substantial financial gain.”
Joanna Staples, for Binns, said he was motivated by the need to find the cash to pay for an operation for his wife, who was diagnosed with a benign brain tumour.
UK doctors were not prepared to perform the operation so Binns tracked down a doctor in his native South Africa who was prepared to carry out the treatment but at a “vast cost”.
Miss Staples said: “It was that which instigated this enterprise.”