Dan Joch McLeod’s scientific ambitions were thwarted by police soon after he crossed the Queensland border into the Territory in February this year, towing a caravan full of cannabis seedlings and cuttings.

He had hoped to take the plants to a property north east of Tennant Creek to grow them there.

McLeod had come from Camooweal where he had already been picked up for possessing the same drugs and was subsequently fined $450 in the Camooweal Magistrates Court.

Following McLeod’s arrest he was bailed and returned to Camooweal but returned to Tennant Creek in July where he surrendered himself to police because he realised he would have a jail term imposed on him and wanted to start serving it.

In the Supreme Court in Alice Springs recently, Justice Mansfield said he accepted that the cannabis would not have hit the commercial users’ market but said that the offence must attract a significant punishment to try and discourage people from bringing cannabis into the Northern Territory.

Justice Mansfield sentenced McLeod to 18 months imprisonment backdated to July to take into account time spent in custody and suspended from the day he appeared in court.

“I think in the particular circumstances that is a recognition of the seriousness of the offence from the point of view of the community but having regard to its peculiar circumstances, your remorse and the way in which you have cooperated with the authorities in making admissions and the facilitating of the committal and in the plea of guilty in this matter,” Justice Mansfield said.