No Bail For Drug Accused

Illawarra Mercury

Tuesday April 4, 2000

By KIM TREASURE

Three men charged over a South Coast cannabis-growing operation worth more than $2.5 million were refused bail when they appeared in Batemans Bay Local Court yesterday.

Tyson Lee French, 29, of Hillcrest Ave, South Nowra, is accused of ``master-minding" the operation, which came undone after a series of police raids last month.

French appeared before Magistrate David O'Connor yesterday charged with cultivating 955 plants in two crops and with supplying 34kg of cannabis leaf.

The Nowra businessman was also charged with possessing unregistered firearms.

He did not enter a plea to the charges and was remanded in custody to appear again on May 1 for mention.

His co-offenders - Peter Raymond Trewartha and Craig James Thorn - both entered pleas of guilty to possessing unauthorised firearms, possessing, cultivating and supplying a prohibited drug.

Solicitor Barry Ennis, for the men, told the court both were very minor players in the operation, ``working for wages" on the plantations.

Trewartha, 31, a Nowra labourer, described his job as a ``plucker", removing shade leaves from the plants and tending the plantation.

Thorn, a 43-year-old cleaner, travelled from Queensland to work on one of the plantations, which police described as ``sophisticated" operations.

Detectives said the plantations in the Clyde State Forest near Batemans Bay were enclosed in black netting and irrigated using water pumped from a nearby river into storage.

A fourth man has also been charged over the matter and was refused bail in Queanbeyan Local Court last month.

Trewartha and Thorn are to appear again in Batemans Bay Local Court on April 17.

© 2000 Illawarra Mercury

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