A grandfather was sentenced to three years behind bars yesterday after being convicted of running what a prosecutor described as a drug factory in his Sandys home. Charter boat captain George Leonard Lambert (pictured) was found guilty by a jury in May of possessing cannabis with intent to supply and possessing drug equipment.

The 54-year-old had previously admitted two counts of cannabis possession and one of having drug equipment relating to a small amount of the drug for his own personal use. The charges were the result of a Police raid at Lambert?s home in Scaur Lane, Sandys, on March 13, 2004 during which officers discovered a total of 686 grams of cannabis with an estimated street value of $34,300. They also found five buckets, an electric saw and plastic wrappings.

Prosecutor Wayne Caines told Supreme Court yesterday that society must be protected from the scourge of drugs. ?His home was a factory for the manufacture and distribution of marijuana,? he said. ?He took a gamble and he lost. He can only be described as a drug dealer.?

Elizabeth Christopher, defending Lambert, said the equipment found was not the ?classic? equipment for preparing drugs for sale such as scales. She questioned the prosecution?s presentation of his activities pointing out that the court did not know if Lambert had been selling the drug. The court had heard from Detective Constable Alickson Severin that Lambert only had one previous conviction ? for speeding in a boat ? and that he had a 31-year-old son. Ms Christopher said that her client also had a younger son in St. Vincent and a wife there who he married while on bail before his trial. She said that pre-sentence reports described Lambert as ?well-adjusted? and said he had articulated his resolve to refrain from further criminal conduct.

Puisne Justice Charles-Etta Simmons told Lambert that the charges relating to possession of a ?substantial amount? of cannabis and equipment required an immediate sentence of imprisonment. The same jury that convicted Lambert in May had previously cleared him and co-defendants Gladwyn Sherwyn Simmons, Ricardo Michael Tucker and Anthony Stanley Martin on the direction of the judge of conspiring to import cannabis to Bermuda in a plot involving a yacht named .

A fifth man, Tristan La-Van Codrington, pleaded guilty to conspiracy part-way through the seven week trial although this could not be reported at the time due to a decision by Mrs. Justice Simmons. Codrington, 30, appeared at Supreme Court in a separate hearing in front of that judge yesterday. She ordered that a pre-sentence report be prepared and adjourned the case until September 1, remanding him into custody until then.