An unemployed Llandeilo man caught with £6-worth of cannabis told police that the ban on the drug was “a silly law”.

Jacob Samuel Shrimpton, of Flat 1 in 2 Kings Road, said he smoked around £10-worth of the drug – two to three grammes - a year.

Ellie Morgan, prosecuting, told Llanelli magistrates how officers had called at the 34-year-old’s home at 11.10am on May 2 on an unrelated matter.

While at the premises the officers noticed the smell of cannabis.

When asked whether he had any of the Class B drug, Shrimpton led the officers to the front room and produced around one-and-a-half grammes of cannabis from a drawer.

The former telesales worker was immediately arrested.

“He told police he smoked around three grammes of the drug a year,” Ms Morgan told the court.

“He had smoked one-and-a-half grammes in the past six months.”

Shrimpton said he knew it was illegal to possess cannabis, but said it was “a silly law”.

He told police he had been given the drug by a family friend at his father’s funeral.

Representing himself at court, Shrimpton told magistrates: “I smoke it very, very rarely.”

“I had a hard time last year due to a number of family problems and then my father died.

“I accept it was foolish.”

Shrimpton admitted possessing the Class B drug.

Magistrates fined him £65 and ordered him to pay £85 court costs and a further £20 legal surcharge.