Cannabis raids: BBC watches police move in on Dorset drug factory

Thousands of factory-farmed cannabis plants have been seized by police in Dorset. The BBC's Nikki Mitchell saw the dramatic scenes unfold as she joined officers taking part in Operation Mille, a country-wide mission to thwart organised crime groups.

They move fast and the sound is deafening.

Specialist firearms officers are powering their way through the door of an industrial unit in Three Legged Cross, a village in east Dorset, with heavy duty tools.

Uniformed officers from Dorset Police are ready to follow in behind them.

"What always runs through your mind is who's in there? And are we safe?" PC Kate Schofield tells me.

She knows that if there's a cannabis factory inside, there may well also be people; criminals willing to defend their drugs with weapons, or modern-day slaves forced to look after the lucrative crop.

There are warning shouts of "Police!", followed by loud bangs and footsteps, as two dozen officers pile in through the door.

Within minutes wide metal shutters are pulled up and the sticky sweet stench of cannabis wafts into the air outside.

Inside the unit, the handle of a wooden chip board door is hanging off.

Behind it is an unzipped tent full of hydroponic equipment and at least 200 flowering cannabis plants. The rest of the unit is empty.

"It's about £500 per plant," says PC Schofield, explaining how crops are harvested and rotated every 12 weeks throughout the year.

"So probably about £500,000-worth per year."

Half an hour away along a leafy lane in St Leonards, another search is under way at the home of someone linked to the industrial unit.

The helmet-clad covert officers are using a different set of tools to break open lorries parked on the driveway.

When the doors finally swing open, more cannabis plants are found: smaller, younger plants in an earlier stage of the growing cycle.

Assistant Chief Constable Rachel Farrell is proud of her team.

She describes cannabis as a "really harmful drug" that "really impacts" communities.

I ask her how worried she is about new cannabis factories springing up to replace the ones being raided, but she is defiant.

"We don't want organised criminals coming to Dorset and thinking they can exploit our county, our vulnerable people," she replies.

"So that's why we don't stop and we keep going."

Specialist dog handlers secure and care for the huge dogs guarding the property. A woman is arrested and led away to be questioned.

Dorset's Conservative Police and Crime Commissioner David Sidwick is delighted, calling it a "significant win".

"This is also about disrupting the bad guys," he says.

"When we look at disruptions across the whole country, Dorset Police ranks fourth. We've shut 21 county [drug] lines in the last year."

About 5,000 cannabis plants have been seized in Dorset during Operation Mille and a more local drug enforcement drive called Operation Scorpion.

The largest drug factory was found in Wareham. The 3,000 plants discovered there in a single raid are to be destroyed along with the rest.

About 1,000 search warrants have been executed by police nationally since 1 March.

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