A MAN has admitted producing around £100,000 worth of cannabis across two properties in the Amman Valley.

Ostap Isak sub-let the upstairs of a property on Cwmgarw Road in Upper Brynamman from Anita Murphy-Patel.

The court had previously heard that 376 cannabis plants were seized from two properties – one of which was Murphy-Patel’s.

The plants seized from one of the addresses had a street value of around £79,000, while the cannabis at the other had a value of just under £38,000.

Isak appeared alongside Murphy-Patel, 55, at Swansea Crown Court on Friday, April 28.

He pleaded guilty to two offences of producing cannabis – dated February 27 and March 23.

Murphy-Patel had denied the same two cannabis production charges when she appeared in court on Tuesday, April 25.

She told the court on that date that she was “immobile and only lives downstairs” so was unaware of what was happening upstairs. She denied having been in the second property.  

On April 28, Murphy-Patel admitted a charge of permitting a premises to be used for unlawful purposes between February 27 and March 23.

Helen Randall, prosecuting, said these pleas were acceptable, and that the prosecution would not seek a trial against Murphy-Patel.

Speaking via an interpreter, Isak told the judge: “Ms Patel knew nothing of the production of cannabis. I was just paying her rent.”

Judge Paul Thomas indicated to Isak that his co-defendant would not be facing a prison sentence.

The court head that Isak was a Ukrainian national, although he did not come to the UK through the settlement scheme as he had arrived one month before the Russian invasion of his country.

The defendants will be brought back before the court for sentencing in three weeks’ time, although no fixed date has yet been set.