This item in the Northhampton (UK) Post and Chronicle caught our eye:

“A businessman who ran a cannabis factory to help pay for IVF treatment ‘lost his bottle’ and shut it down after reading the Chronicle & Echo. Stephen Ashmore, aged 44, was jailed for 14 months at Northampton Crown Court yesterday for the cannabis factory he set up on an industrial unit in James Watt Close, Daventry.”

Mr Ashmore’s lawyer suggested that there were mitigating circumstances. He had been growing marijuana to pay for IVF treatment which cost £4,500 for each cycle. However, the judge was unsympathetic. "You're not going to get a suspended sentence from me,” he was told. “That would send out completely the wrong message and that needs to go out not just from newspapers but from this court."

That’s all the information we have to go on. What about Mr Ashmore’s missus? Did he have one? Did the IVF clinic regard him as a fit parent? Did he plan to expand his agricultural operations to pay for his child’s school fees? This all-too-brief item raises more questions than it answers. ~ Post and Chronicle, Aug 26