SIX convicted drug-growing criminals have launched a test-case challenge against Sheffield’s top judge – by bidding to have their jail terms quashed and set a legal precedent. The drug growers were all jailed in one afternoon at Sheffield Crown Court by Judge Alan Goldsack QC, who vowed to carry on locking up cannabis farmers despite the introduction of new sentencing guidelines. Judge Goldsack publicly backed The Star’s Crackdown on Drugs campaign to stamp out cannabis-growing – and said reducing sentences would ‘undermine public confidence’. But the convicts are now taking their cases to London, to the Court of Appeal, and arguing people who grow cannabis at home for their own use should be jailed only in exceptional circumstances.
