by Paul Hooper

A Whitstable businessman has been convicted of being the mastermind behind one of Kent’s biggest cannabis factories.

John Read, 54, ran a series of printing companies and an art gallery in Tankerton.

But a jury at Canterbury Crown Court heard he leased three buildings to harvest drugs with a street value of more than £3.3m.

The court was told one of the buildings - on the Joseph Wilson Business Estate in Whitstable - was rented from Tesco.

When undercover police officers raided it in May last year they discovered a seven-room factory dedicated to the growing of cannabis.

The officer leading Operation Nursery Dave Godden said: “This is probably the biggest operation we have ever seen in Kent.”

The investigation also uncovered factories at a barn in Wootton, near Dover, and Coombe Valley Road in Dover.

Sentencing was adjourned until August but Read was warned he faced “an inevitable jail sentence of a substantial length”.

His business pal Roger Coombs, 70, from Crawley, was acquitted on four similar charges but found guilty on one charge of perverting the course of justice.

For full story see this week’s Whitstable Gazette.