A MAN who moved in to Ruthin and ran a sophisticated cannabis supply operation was found to have an arsenal of weapons at his rented house - and a saw-off shotgun and ammo under his bed.

David Ian Welch, 36, claimed he moved from Liverpool to the Vale of Clwyd to “make a fresh start”.

But that was rejected as nonsense by a crown court judge who jailed him for seven years. Judge Rhys Rowlands said he moved into Ruthin to run his drugs supply business and despite claiming universal credit had almost £36,000 cash in a safe.

His home in Wrexham Road had a CCTV system with a camera trained on the street below.

Cannabis with an estimated street value of up to £8,600 were recovered by police who raided the property in January. Police found a sawn off shotgun and 34 cartridges under his bed.

Judge Rowlands said he accepted the shotgun was not linked to the cannabis business.

He had clearly been entrusted by serious criminals to provide “a safe haven” for the weapon and ammunition.

The cannabis business was sophisticated and he had other weapons in almost every room. He had a baseball bat near the front door, a samurai sword on the stairs, a filleting knife on the sofa, a machete and a throwing knife among other items.

Welsh received the statutory minimum five year sentence for possessing a sawn-off shotgun with a barrel less than 30 cm. He received a consecutive two year sentence for possessing 1.1 kilogrammes of cannabis, valued at up to £8,600 with intent to supply, making a total of seven years.

The defendant admitted both offences together with possessing the ammunition and the cash as criminal property for which he received no separate penalty.

A Proceeds of Crime investigation will now take place to see what can be confiscated.

Prosecuting barrister Matthew Curtis said at 8 a.m. on January 11 a search warrant was executed at the house where Welch lived with his partner. He came to the door and was detained.

Police recovered a large amount of cannabis and paraphernalia including electronic scales, bags and a cannabis grinder.

Several weapons were recovered together with four mobile phones and his vehicle outside was seized.

Following his arrest, a safe was located in his bedroom.

Welch said that he did not have a key and claimed he was looking after it for someone else.

A short time later police found the safe key on the back door key ring and when opened it was found to contain £35,780.

More than £400 was found in a jacket pocket.

The items were removed, a further search was carried out, and it was then that the police found the sawn-off shotgun with a 294 mm long barrel wrapped in a towel under his bed. The ammunition was found in a toweling bag nearby.

Photographs of the weapons recovered by police were shown to the judge.

Text messages indicative of drug supply - asking for bud and weed - were found.

Welch produced a prepared statement to police in which he denied dealing in cannabis and said the shotgun and ammo did not belong to him.

He claimed that two weeks earlier he had been visited by two men who threatened him to store the items.

Defending barrister Simon Rogers confirmed that it was a prescribed minimum sentence of five year case and he would not be arguing that it was an exceptional case. The most important mitigation was his guilty pleas.

There was no evidence that his client had used any weapon to threaten or intimidate anyone.

He had previous convictions but the more serious ones went back 14 years.

For a period of time he had issues with cannabis and cocaine addiction which led to him being involved in the offences.

He suffered from depression, remained drugs free in custody and wished to change his ways.

“My instructions are that the reason he was in Ruthin was because he had moved away from Liverpool to make a fresh start.

“Sadly be became involved in the offences.”

The judge dismissed that claim as nonsense. He said that Ruthin was not renounced for being a dangerous place. “Why did he need all the weaponry,” he asked.

“He chose to move into Ruthin thinking it was an easy place to target,”

he said.

But luckily the police were on to him within a short time.

The judge said that police had described a CCTV camera set up in a bedroom looking down onto the street, wired to the television.

“Why do people on a main road in Ruthin need CCTV cameras looking down on the street unless they are running a sophisticated cannabis supply operation?

“Why have an arsenal of weapons, apart from the shotgun, and why have a safe containing almost £36,000 unless you are running a sophisticated cannabis supply operation?

“What was he doing in Ruthin? He had been there for eight months but had no connection with the locality at all.

“He had moved in hoping to peddle his trade.

“This is pretty serious stuff. He had weapons throughout the whole house.”

“It is extremely serious offending.”

The judge said that the inevitable inference was that he moved in to Ruthin to deal in cannabis on some scale while maintaining contact with criminals in Mersey side who no doubt had provided him with the shot gun.

The defendant was a man who in the past had supplied cannabis, used violence and had possessed a prohibited weapon back in 2014.

Judge Rowlands said that the police were to be congratulated and commended for the investigation which led to the recovery of the sawn-off shotgun - and for the efficient way the case had been brought to court.

As a weapon the sawn off shotgun had no aesthetic or sporting value.

The only purposes of such a weapon was to “injure, maim or worse”, he said.