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Drug search missed £1m LSD cache

From the archive, first published Wednesday 26th Jan 2005.

Police searching a home-made drugs factory failed to find thousands of doses of LSD worth up to £1 million hidden in a cupboard, a jury heard.

A specialist team of detectives and scientists spent two days searching the detached house in The Vale, Ovingdean, near Brighton, where psychedelic drugs were allegedly being made in a bedroom laboratory.

It is claimed they discovered a complex lab capable of making mind-enhancing drugs with a street value of up to £5 million.

Two days later, police officers returned to the house, which had been left unguarded, to finalise the search.

On this visit, the LSD was found in a small cupboard above a linen cupboard in the hall. There were 145,000 doses of the mind-altering drug.

Casey Hardison, 33, an American citizen who rented the three-bedroom house, called Montecillo, has denied making drugs in the makeshift lab.

Hardison, who is representing himself at his trial at Lewes Crown Court, suggested to the jury the LSD may have been planted in the cupboard to incriminate him while the house was left empty following his arrest and the original search.

During cross-examination, Detective Sergeant Tony Pike denied the police were responsible for putting the LSD in the cupboard.

He told the jury it was a "regrettable fact" the drugs had been missed during the first two-day search in February last year.

He said the small cupboard was initially overlooked.

The jury heard the LSD was discovered wrapped in plastic bags inside a Liverpool Football Club bag.

Also in it were personal documents relating to a person from Liverpool.

Hardison, a chemist from Idaho, asked: "Is it possible that someone entered the building using a key left under a flower pot and intentionally planted the bag with the intention to stitch me up?"

Det Sgt Pike replied: "Yes, because anything is possible." But, he said, it was entirely inconceivable anyone would waste drugs worth up to £1 million simply to incriminate someone else.

He said: "There is no way in this world that any member of the police force could do that.

"We would never have access to that amount of LSD. The concept someone else could have gone into the house and taken that amount and value of LSD and used it deliberately to incriminate someone else, I would suggest is not a conceivable concept."

The jury has heard Hardison, who claims to have degrees in biochemistry and botany from the University of Idaho, is a chemistry expert who has studied in depth illicit mind-enhancing drugs.

He describes himself as a committed advocate for drug legalisation.

Police launched Operation Pathfinder and kept watch on his movements for months before arresting him. When police raided the house, where he paid £1,100 a month rent, specialist scientists took samples from the chemicals found while police officers, wearing "spaceman" type chemical protective suits and helmets, searched the property.

Detectives believe it was the most sophisticated and complex illegal drugs lab discovered by police in the UK for 25 years.

Hardison has denied five charges of producing class A drugs, including LSD. He has denied possessing the LSD found in the cupboard with intent to supply and having another class A drug, 5-Meo-DMT.

He has further denied smuggling ecstasy from the UK to the USA, where it was allegedly found by customs officers in July 2003 during a routine check, hidden in the pages of a Private Eye magazine posted to a resident of Coeur D'Alene, Idaho.

The trial continues.

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