Kearan Jeffrey Malone faced Dubbo Local Court yesterday charged with possessing a prohibited drug.

Malone changed his earlier plea of not guilty to guilty and subesquently had an associated charge withdrawn.

According to police facts, in January this year the local force was informed of suspicious behaviour in the forest.

A covert operation was then launched with the aim of discovering who was using the area and what they were doing.

That surveillance identified a silver Holden Commodore station wagon in the forest on 17 occasions and a blue Holden one-tonne ute also frequenting the area.

Both vehicles were registered in Malone’s name.

Three times in three days, simultaneous surveillance of the forest and Malone’s home identified him travelling to the same area of the forest for short periods of time.

On the second occasion, police searched an area at the base of a large tree and discovered and seized a buried PVC pipe which contained several packages of cannabis.

The following day Malone was again noticed in the area and when he dug up the area and was about to open the lid, police announced their presence.

In a recorded interview at the scene, Malone confessed to the police that the drugs seized the previous day belonged to him but maintained that only he knew of location he had stored them.

He later told police in an electronic interview they were for his own personal use, that he smoked cannabis with his wife and that he attended the scene to obtain one ounce quantities of the drug at a time but also to obtain foliage for his child’s reptiles.

The facts stated that police seized a total of 222.5 grams of the drug from the pipe.

Magistrate Hamilton adjourned the matter until September 8 and ordered that a pre-sentence report be prepared by the probation and parole service prior to Malone’s next court appearance.