- The old folks were just trying to stay warm, for Pete’s sake.
As you age, your body will lose its ability to regulate your temperature as effectively as it did when you were a spry young thing. As such, you might find yourself turning up the heating as the years start piling on.
This U.K. couple, however, heated their house a bit too much — or at least the cops thought so.
A police helicopter detected a house whose roof lit up like a wildfire on the chopper’s thermal camera. The cops assumed the house was home to an illegal cannabis farm, as the marijuana plant needs high heat to grow.
So, they raided the place to bust the drug farmers. Only, there wasn’t a single marijuana plant in the house.
Instead, the cops burst into the home of Barry and Mavis Lovelock. The retirees simply had their heat blazing because it’d been chilly lately, and the old timers were cold.
During the raid, the police busted through the couple’s gated fence and also damaged their doors. The police have apologized and said they’d pay for any repairs, but the whole incident has still left the Lovelocks seriously upset.
Obvious Sign
In early February, a thermal camera-equipped police helicopter was flying around Newfoundpool on a patrol. Suddenly, the pilots noticed a suspicious thermal signature.
The heat-sensitive camera showed that the roof of one house shone bright like a Christmas tree. It wasn’t actually on fire, but according to the camera, it might as well have been.
To the police, such a hot house was a clear sign that something illegal was afoot. To be precise, they were convinced that the house was a cannabis farm.
In case you didn’t know, the marijuana-producing hemp plant is native to the warm regions of Asia. As such, it needs plenty of heat to grow, which marijuana farmers (especially illegal ones) typically supply with heat lamps.
There are a few telltale signs that there’s an illicit weed farm in a house. One of them is a sky-high power bill as the heat lamps guzzle up electricity.
Another one is that the house is incredibly warm due to the heat the lamps produce. As such, the cops had no doubt this house was growing weed.
So, they got a search warrant and, on March 15, raided the house.
Terrifying Ordeal
That very same morning, Barry (80) and Mavis (78) Lovelock were having breakfast in the house they had lived in since 1978. Suddenly, their meal was interrupted by the sound of splintering wood outside.
Then, someone started banging insistently on their front door.
Mr. Lovelock went to see what on earth was going on. However, he only got a warning to step away from the door.
“Somebody shouted back to Barry, ‘Stand clear!’” Mrs. Lovelock told The Metro.
“They just rammed the door in. It was awful.”
Nine police officers burst into the house, rushing to the second floor where they assumed the cannabis farm was. Except, it wasn’t.
“It was terrifying, and I said to them, ‘What the devil do you think you’re doing?’ I said, ‘There’s two pensioners here,’ and they just stood there,” recalled Mrs. Lovelock.
As it turned out, the heat signature detected on the thermal camera was due to the house’s two gas heaters. It had been a cold winter in England, and the Lovelocks had kept the heaters at full blast pretty much 24/7.
“People of our age feel the cold so we need the heating on,” Mrs. Lovelock summarized.
‘Struggling to Sleep’
If the Lovelocks were terrified by the drug raid, the raiders themselves were more than a bit embarrassed. They explained the situation, telling the couple about the helicopter and the thermal camera. They also allowed them to see their baseless arrest warrant, dated February 18.
“After most of the officers left, and they were only here for four or five minutes, two stayed behind and were apologetic. One female [constable] was quite upset,” Mr. Lovelock said.
A police rapid response team arrived the same day and did preliminary fixes on the couple’s front door. However, they also told the Lovelocks that they should go out through their backdoor until the front one has been properly repaired.
As to their ruined fence gate, the police have asked the couple to send them a receipt for the repairs, and they’ll pay it off. While it’s nice that they won’t have to pay for the damages themselves, the experience has left the Lovelocks shaken.
“Mavis has been left really shook up, and struggling to sleep,” lamented Mr. Lovelock.
For their part, the Leicestershire Police Department has said “due diligence was completed” before the raid. However, they acknowledged that the information they acted on was “not fully accurate.”