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UKCIA
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Pensioners' pink moss garden sparks raid by police Yorkshire Post Yorkshirepost.co.uk Saturday 06 Dec 2008 Published Date: 06 December 2008 A common garden plant which smells like cannabis led to a police raid on an elderly couple's house and a crazed drugs gang attacking a home owner for his "haul" of weed. The pink flowering moss is thought to be to blame for a strong smell of cannabis in Courtney Road, Kingswood, near Bristol, which attracted the attention of drug users looking for their next smoke – plus the drugs squad. Police have apologised to Ivor Wiltshire, 77, and his wife Margaret, 79, for raiding their home with sniffer dogs to search for a cannabis factory in the loft. After finding no evidence of illegal activity the culprit is thought to be a seemingly harmless garden plant which grows small pink flowers known as moss phlox or phlox subulata. Mr and Mrs Wiltshire bought the plants at a garden centre for just £2 and planted it in the front and back garden of their home four years ago but it recently started to give off a smell similar to cannabis. The couple were on a two-week holiday in Madeira when they returned home to find their front door had been smashed in by police in an early morning raid. The week before they went on holiday, Mr Wiltshire said his community-minded wife contacted the local police station to make them aware that they would be away and the house would be empty. "I couldn't believe it, a couple of pensioners hiding a cannabis factory – you couldn't make it up. We couldn't stay in the house for about a week while the doors were fixed, and now, after 40 years, I just can't stand to be here after all this." Mr Wiltshire said he had been told by neighbours and passers-by about the smell of cannabis but because of an operation he could not smell it. "Now I've ripped it all up because of everything that has happened, I couldn't sleep one night thinking about it all so I got up at 2.30am and was out there putting it all in bin bags for the tip." The police raid on the Wiltshires' home came after a attack on the home of next-door neighbour David Difford, 54, by a knife-wielding gang wearing Halloween masks who broke into his house and demanded that he "give them the weed". Mr Difford said things have quietened down now the plants had gone. Avon and Somerset Police have offered compensation to Mr and Mrs Wiltshire and apologised. http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/Pensioners-pink-moss-garden-sparks.4768277.jp
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