‘I only visited drug building to store wood,’ says man accused of working in Banbury cannabis factory (From The Oxford Times)

‘I only visited drug building to store wood,’ says man accused of working in Banbury cannabis factory

9:30am Thursday 21st February 2013 in News

A MAN who denies working in a cannabis factory in an old warehouse told a court he only visited the building once.

Leslie Ballard, 59, of Broughton Road, Banbury, and Birmingham residents Gulfam Yousaf and Zafar Iqbal, deny producing the Class B drug.

On April 24, 2011, police found 87 mature cannabis plants in tents on the first and second floors of a building in Pepper Alley in Banbury.

Yousaf, of Chestnut Road, Birmingham, was arrested after a cigarette butt with his DNA on it was found on the warehouse’s first floor.

Yesterday, the 39-year-old told Oxford Crown Court he had only visited the building once in early 2011 to deliver some plywood with his fellow defendant Iqbal.

He said: “There was a friend of mine who had this wood coming.

“He makes drawers and things and has got a factory. He mentioned in a conversation that he had some wood for sale.”

Yousaf said he and 35-year-old Iqbal, of Church Road, Birmingham, moved about 320 sheets of plywood to the warehouse and he smoked around 10 cigarettes during the work.

He said: “I smoked upstairs, downstairs, outside. All over the place. That was how it got there.”

But Sandra Beck, prosecuting, told him: “You are making this up to account for how your DNA on a cigarette butt got there.”

The trial continues.