This is the extraordinary scene that confronted police officers when they raided a sprawling cannabis factory in Bicester.

Officers smashed through the doors of the industrial unit on the Telford Road industrial estate at dawn on October 21.

Video from the police officers’ body-worn video cameras shows the huge amount of cannabis they found growing inside the seven, heavily-insulated rooms.

A PC Turner, whose statement was read to Oxford Crown Court last week, said: “Initially it looked as if there was no access but then I noticed a small panel that appeared to have been cut through.

“After a few kicks on the board we could access through, and I could see a white male stood at the end of the corridor about 10m away.”

That man was Petref Resuli, an Albanian national who entered the UK illegally in June 2021.

Prosecutor Jonathan Stone told Resuli’s sentencing hearing that the cannabis farm in which he was living was also home to 910 plants.

Mr Stone said of the farm, in which dangerous electrical wires dangled from the ceiling: “It’s a professional set up; professional in terms of criminality but not professional in terms of safety, if I can put it that way.”

Oxford Mail:

Oxford Mail:

Police in the cannabis factory in Bicester Picture: CPS

Also in the factory were living quarters with a bed, kitchen, well-stocked fridge, a toilet, shower and washing machine.

Interviewed by the police, Resuli claimed he was sleeping rough on the streets when a man approached him and said he could help find him somewhere to sleep.

The man took him to the industrial unit where he was arrested.

“I had nowhere to go and he told me he could find me a job. I asked him about the plants but he said it was none of my business,” he said.

Resuli later abandoned claims he’d played no part in looking after the cannabis plants, pleading guilty to a charge of producing a class B drug. In a basis of plea he said he was only a gardener.

The 40-year-old was later jailed for 15 months.

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