Anti-abortion pot grower loses appeal for longer sentence
ONE of Queensland's largest pot growers has lost his fight for a longer jail sentence.
Michael Bennett Gardner Snr, an anti-abortion campaigner and father of nine, told the Court of Appeal earlier this week that his behaviour deserved more than 13 years behind bars.
Police found $70 million worth of marijuana on his Inglewood property but the multiple harvested fields indicated he had already processed millions of dollars worth more.
Gardner claimed he was growing the drug, which he often sold while disguised as a hippie in Nimbin in northern NSW, to fund a large nationwide anti-abortion campaign.
The Court of Appeal found, in a judgment handed down on Friday, that he had not submitted any factors which could justify his argument that 13 years was "manifestly inadequate".
