A reader has asked if I know the whereabouts of Jeffrey Ditchfield who began trying to run a cannabis café known as the Beggar’s Belief in 2002 in Water Street, Rhyl.
Mr. Ditchfield seemed to me to be using disabled people as a
starting point towards supplying cannabis for recreational purposes. We
wrestled in the letters columns of local newspapers like Holmes and Moriarty.
Although I never disliked him personally I hated the drugs
image he was helping to give the town. Use of illegal drugs for medicinal purposes
is a matter for the Government and NHS not cowboy operators.
Mr. Ditchfield was treated as a celebrity in some quarters. The Visitor newspaper went as far as
asking him to name his favourite things and Rhyl Town Council gave him an award
for his hanging baskets.
It took four long years for North Wales Police to put a stop
to his illegal activities in Rhyl, and the force was virtually
shamed into it by a TV documentary that revealed more about him.
[Local criminal Johnny Gizzi (John Damon Gizzi) had been a household name as a drug dealer
for considerably longer before they got round to convicting him of his first
drug offence.]
Do I know where Mr. Ditchfield is now? Nope.
What I do know is that sometime after he lost his final court case in 2006 he sold his Water Street premises to officers of Welsh Government and thereby pocketed a pile of our money.
No doubt he felt much obliged.
--
Do I know where Mr. Ditchfield is now? Nope.
What I do know is that sometime after he lost his final court case in 2006 he sold his Water Street premises to officers of Welsh Government and thereby pocketed a pile of our money.
No doubt he felt much obliged.
--
