Men jailed for 'speed' factory

TWO Americans who set up Britain's biggest illegal drugs factory were jailed for a total of 20 years by a judge at Maidstone Crown Court in Kent yesterday. The court heard that the factory, in a double garage at a bungalow at Harvel, near Gravesend, produced pounds 2m worth of the drug 'speed' a day.

Thomas Beaver, 52, from San Diego, California, who denied manufacturing illicit drugs, was jailed for 14 years, and Joseph McGill, 54, from River Ridge, Louisiana, who also denied the charge, received a six-year term.