Father and son built cannabis cave twelve feet beneath their garden

A father and son built a secret underground cannabis cave 12ft beneath their back garden – and hid the entrance under a paving stone. David Mundy, 54, spent hours digging out the den at the rear of his property on Barr Hill Avenue, Pendlebury, Lancashire, aided by son Anthony, 29. The pair were each sentenced at Manchester Crown Court to 15 week suspended jail sentences for production of a class B drug. They were also ordered to carry out 80 hours of unpaid work.



Now David Mundy has been ordered to pay back more than £13,000 he made from selling the drugs. A confiscation hearing was told that officers raided the family home in October 2011 after a tip-off - and discovered the underground entrance beneath the paving flag. To their amazement, they found concealed ladders leading down to the underground farm, running under the surface of the hillside on the East Lancashire Road. The cavern contained 17 plants worth more than £8,000.

The confiscation hearing was held on Monday under the Proceeds of Crime Act at Manchester Crown Court. It was found that Mundy had made £13,480 from his secret drug business. If he fails to repay the cash within six months he will be sent down for a year - and still owe the money. Detective Chief Inspector Dave Riddick, of Greater Manchester Police, said: "Mundy went to considerable lengths - quite literally - to keep his cannabis farm hidden.



"What we discovered was an underground drugs den housed within a storage unit, and must have taken him many hours to build, hours that should have been spent earning his money legitimately like the rest of us do. Thanks to Proceeds of Crime Act legislation, we are now able to ensure that people like Mundy cannot profit from their criminal endeavours. The message is clear: if you think you can bury your criminality underground, you are burying your head in the sand because we will find you and we will do everything we can to take away not only your liberty but also your illegally accumulated wealth."