Bicester cannabis grower had sawn-off shotgun in cupboard

Michael Lawson’s back garden bonfire came after police officers investigating drug dealing from a property on the street mistakenly knocked on his door on July 24, 2021, and asked if he’d been selling the herb from his home.

The officers realised they had knocked on the wrong door. When they returned to the road to call at the right house across the road, they could smell the sickly-sweet scent of cannabis in the air.

Their coppers’ nose led them to the house they had visited earlier that day. They found now 29-year-old Lawson in his back garden, burning cannabis on a barbecue.

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Prosecuting, Adam Pearson said the man’s home was searched. They found kit used to grow cannabis together with the harvested drug.

He had weighing scales, plastic bags, as well as a machete in the lounge and an extendable baton found on the top of a fridge.

Inside an airing cupboard, the officers discovered a sawn-off shotgun hidden in a pile of socks.

The barrel had been shortened to 17cm. Found with it were 50 cartridges.

Michael Lawson walked from court after being given a suspended prison sentence Picture: Oxford Mail (Image: Oxford Mail)

Police specialists had subsequently ruled the shotgun to be a working firearm, capable of discharging ammunition found alongside it in the airing cupboard.

Giving evidence to support his own mitigation, Lawson said from the witness box that the shotgun belonged to a friend.

He had confiscated the weapon believing his friend, who ‘had a heart of gold’ but ‘a lot of struggles in his life’, might use it on himself.

“I confronted him about it and he didn’t give me much response, other than he asked me multiple times not to tell anybody,” he told the court.

“I wouldn’t give it back to him. I was frightened he would kill himself with it. I took it and stored it.”

Quizzed by Mr Pearson whether his friend was the sort of man who would have a shortened shotgun for criminal purposes, Lawson replied: “I don’t think he would have had it for criminal purposes.”

He took the shotgun with him when he moved house; a decision that earned him the scorn of the prosecutor.

“A man that you don’t know is moving your belongings, which includes a sawn-off shotgun and shells without any supervision from you or knowledge of him. Is that right, Mr Lawson?” Mr Pearson pushed.  

The only reason he did not hand it into the police was because he feared being arrested, the defendant said.

Michael Lawson after the court hearing Picture: Oxford Mail (Image: Oxford Mail)

“As a family, we’ve had to call the police due to other circumstances and they have never helped us resolve those situations, which have led to threats on our lives [and] abuse. That’s why I didn’t go to the police with it,” Lawson said from the box.

He said he had been growing cannabis in order to mimic CBD creams sold by High Street health store Holland and Barrett.

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Lawson, who suffered from Fibromyalgia and depression and who walked from the dock to the witness box with the aid of crutches, said: I couldn’t afford the variety of creams that I wanted. [I] tried to find a more affordable way to do it so I could endure the health conditions I have.”

Mitigating, Charlotte Arundale said her client had moved on from the man he was in 2021. He had completed a number of diploma courses and helped look after his grandfather.

The defendant, of Lancaster Close, Bicester, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to production of cannabis and possession of a prohibited firearm. He had no previous court convictions.

Judge Michael Gledhill KC took an exceptional course, imposing a two year suspended prison sentence rather than sending him down for the mandatory minimum of five years called for by the firearms law.