Drugs factory hidden behind bookcase

A bookcase inside a barn near Crowle hid a secret door which led to a three-room cannabis factory, police discovered during a drug raid yesterday. At the top of a secret staircase, inside a converted barn off the A161, officers found harvested plants and a drying rack containing 'several thousand pounds worth' of potent cannabis buds.

Two large rooms plus an attic had been used to cultivate the illegal drug, with the whole operation completely undetectable from the outside. Teams of officers including the dog section, forensic specialists and scenes of crime officers (SOCOs) headed to the rural address, after receiving information.

After forcing entry to the drug barn, police quickly realised there was a first floor – but with no stairs, the problem was getting up there.

Sgt Martin Coffey, who led the raid, said: "We were looking for the stairs when Pc Craig Day realised the bookcase was against a piece of hardboard rather than a solid wall. We tried to move it but it was actually fixed to the board – eventually it came away when the padlock holding it broke. Behind that secret door was a second one. Once we broke the locks on that we found the stairs."
thisisscunthorpe.co.uk