by Keith Hunt

Police officers stopped a driver because they believed his car was uninsured and then discovered a stash of skunk cannabis worth about £13,000, a court heard.

Darren Wallington, 37, and his passenger Avtar Singh, 43, drove off in the Ford Fiesta from a house in Maidstone Road, Chatham, on April 8 last year.

They stopped at a nursery a short distance away and when the officers went to the car there was a strong smell of the drug.

Anne Phillips, prosecuting, told a jury at Maidstone Crown Court a large bag of cannabis weighing 478 grammes and worth £2,000 was found behind the passenger seat.

A search of Wallington’s one-bedroom flat in Maidstone Road revealed more of the drug and dealing equipment.

“They went into the bathroom and hidden behind the bath panel were two very large vacuum-sealed bags, which contained cannabis worth £8,000,” said Mrs Phillips.

“In a fridge in the bedroom were another two bags of cannabis, weighing 113 grammes and 506 grammes worth about £2,500.”

A smaller amount of cannabis was retrieved from a locked cupboard.

“The Crown’s case is that they had entered into a joint enterprise to supply drugs to other people,” said the prosecutor.

Father-of-three Wallington claimed the drugs found in his car and flat were nothing to do with him.

He said he was in a queue of traffic when he saw Singh standing on a corner with a large cardboard box.

“He threw the box in the boot and jumped into my car,” he said. “I had no choice. I had to drive on because the lights had changed.”

When they arrived in Maidstone Road, he continued, Singh grabbed the box from the car and took it into the flat.

Singh, of Imperial Road, Gillingham, and Wallington, denied two counts of possessing drugs with intent to supply, but were convicted.

They were remanded in custody until sentence on August 2.