Parents of acid attacker Arthur Collins appear in court accused of growing cannabis

Potential yield worth between £9,000 and £25,000, say prosecutors

Police said they discovered 30 plants alongside in an outbuilding while searching for the 25-year-old. (Metropolitan Police/PA)

The parents of jailed acid attacker Arthur Collins have appeared in court accused of growing cannabis at their home.

Police said they discovered 30 plants alongside in an outbuilding while searching for the 25-year-old, on 17 April last year.

Collins, the ex-boyfriend of reality TV star Ferne McCann, was jailed for 20 years in November after hurling acid over a dance floor at an east London nightclub.

The potential yield from the crop found at Mr Collins’s parents house in Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, could have been between £9,000 and £25,000, prosecutors said.

Collins’ 55-year-old father, who is also called Arthur, and mother Jackie, 53, appeared at Stevenage Magistrates’ Court alongside their other son, Thomas, 22.

Officers allegedly found CS spray and a taser, along with 68.1g of cannabis in his bedroom during the search. The family spoke only to confirm their names, dates of births, addresses and confirm they were British during a brief hearing.

Arthur Collins senior, who was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and black trousers, and Ms Collins, dressed in a navy blue skirt and blazer, each face a charge of allowing the production of cannabis, a Class B drug.

Their son, Thomas, who was wearing grey tracksuit bottoms and a black T-shirt, is charged with possessing cannabis and two weapons.

Each of the three defendants made no indication of the pleas they intend to enter.

Magistrates declined jurisdiction, sending the case to St Albans Crown Court for a hearing on 8 June.

All three of the Collins’s were granted unconditional bail.

Arthur Collins junior, who has a baby daughter, Sunday, with Towie actress McCann, was handed an additional eight-month sentence earlier this year for using a smuggled mobile phone in his prison cell.

He said he used the device to call then-pregnant Ms McCann while awaiting trial.

Press Association contributed to this report