CANNABIS CROP RAISED IN SECRET BASEMENT

AN electrician grew a cannabis crop worth up to $550,000 in a secret
basement with trapdoors and false walls.

With a Dutch backpacker as his "handyman", Philip Bruce Hartog lovingly
tended 400 plants in four rooms under a suburban house.

The County Court yesterday heard Hartog, 31, went to great effort to conceal
his mini-forest of semi-mature plants and seedlings.

Judge Chester Keon-Cohen heard the electrician excavated the basement at his
wife's investment property in Devenish Rd, Boronia, without her knowledge.

He installed an exhaust system, filters, lights and other equipment.

Prosecutor Russell Sarah told the court individual power-supply units,
timers and electrical devices appeared to have been professionally installed.

The basement could be entered only down a ladder through a trapdoor cut into
the base of a wardrobe upstairs.

An electrical by-pass at the power box reduced the cost of electricity by
almost $3000.

"It's a very sophisticated set-up," Judge Keon-Cohen said.

Hartog's defence barrister, Tony Isaacs, replied: "He's an electrician, sir."

Hartog, of Mt Waverley, pleaded guilty yesterday to one charge each of
cultivating a commercial quantity of cannabis and theft.

Albert Krompkamp, 38, of Zoetermeer, in the Netherlands, pleaded guilty to
one charge of cultivating a commercial quantity of cannabis.

The court heard Hartog was a kind, generous man who excavated the basement
to stockpile enough cannabis for himself for two years.

Estimating he would need 5kg, he planned to sell the remaining 9kg.

Hartog told the court he and his wife had intended to have children and he
wanted to ensure he did not use family finances to support his habit.

He said he started using cannabis at 14 and had increasingly relied on it as
a form of escapism and motivation.

Hartog said he had been smoking 12 joints a day over the past year,
including one in the car on the way to work. "The last time I gave up was
for a week a few years ago and that was one of the worst weeks of my life,"
he said.

The court heard the crop could have been worth as much as $550,000 or as
little as $100,000.

Judge Keon-Cohen was told Krompkamp, who met Hartog while visiting
Australia, had been in the "wrong place at the wrong time".

Found among the plants during a search by members of the Glen Waverley
district support group in April this year, he had simply been "an aider and
abetter".

The Dutch sound technician had been in Melbourne only a few weeks and was at
the house as a "a place to stay".

Judge Keon-Cohen remanded both men in custody.

Krompkamp, who faces deportation, is due to be sentenced on Friday and
Hartog on a date to be fixed.