Three arrested after Facebook group raid cannabis field – only to find it is hemp

Trespassers quickly descended on the crop

Police have arrested three people after a Facebook post detailed the location of a field packed full of wild-growing cannabis – which turned out to be hemp.

Large numbers of trespassers descended on the West Sussex field after the erroneous post, which mistakenly said the crop was the psychoactive cannabis plant.

Officers found leaves and cigarette papers at the farm near Angmering where the intruders had attempted to smoke parts of the plant. Two sacks stuffed with the hemp were also found.

Nathaniel Loxley, the farmer, believes that he has lost five per cent – equivalent to £8,000 - of his crop.

Loxley, who owns the Hop and Hemp Trading Company, grows the hemp legally under a Home Office licence to make organic tea.

Landowners John Longhurst, 84, and Keith Langmead said the field was planted in March this year after a Home Office licence was granted to grow legal cannabis.

Langmead told the West Sussex County Times: “It was growing quite nicely. We didn’t have any trouble until the weekend when somebody put it on Facebook. We are getting 15-20 kids a day coming in.”

“They can smoke it all they like, they won’t get high. If they go down to Brighton or Portsmouth and try to sell it, they’re going to get duffed up.”

A Sussex Police spokesman said: “Three men, one aged 30 from Littlehampton, one aged 18 from Angmering and one aged 47 from Ilchester, Somerset, were arrested on suspicion of theft of a quantity of industrial hemp which is being grown lawfully under licence in the field.”

“Two bags containing hemp were seized.”

Despite being a variant of the cannabis herb and closely resembling the narcotic, hemp contains none of the drug’s psychoactive properties.

Hemp can be used for a variety of industrial purposes including the manufacture of bio-fuel, medicine and cosmetics.