The marijuana crop was so big the accused demanded he be given more jail time

IT was a $100m drug operation ... so big that when the mastermind was sentenced, he thought the penalty should be tougher. He had no regrets, he was using the money to fight an evil even greater than drugs.

THE bedraggled man in the “Abortion is killing” shirt had been talking for some time — an unending and nonsensical monologue about death and drugs.

He’d been caught growing what was likely Australia’s biggest marijuana crop — fields and fields of plants worth millions of dollars.

It had all been for a good cause though, he’d told authorities. And he’d certainly do it again.

He stood now, before Queensland’s highest court, to protest the 13-year sentence he’d been given for his large-scale drug production.

Thirteen years, he told the court of appeal, just wouldn’t cut it. After all, police raiding his property had found more than three tonnes of dried cannabis ready for sale. Its street value was $28 million. Plants in the field were worth another $80 million.

Michael Bennett Gardner Snr had no interest in drugs. It had simply been a means of making money — money he would use to spread his anti-abortion message around the world.

“The state has not been made aware of the full gravity of this matter,” he said.

His efforts in producing such a haul should be recognised. He had no regrets. He had embarked in a “top level” drug trafficking enterprise and he should be sentenced on that basis. They should know that he had not pleaded guilty to assist the administration of justice. He was proud of his efforts. He told them he had grown a drug that he did not consider to be harmful to fight the greater evil of abortion.

He would do it again. He planned to make a lot more money growing a lot more dope as soon as he was able.

“I’ve applied to this court for an increase in sentence,” he told them.

For such a mammoth effort, he continued, only 20 years would do.

An aerial photograph of one of the cannabis crops on 'Kinvarra', near Inglewood.

MICHAEL Gardner had fathered nine children, married multiple times and was a father figure to several stepchildren.

He had a goal in life. He wanted to put an end to the “senseless slaughter” of unborn babies. He was appalled that abortion clinics could advertise in the Yellow Pages and believed the only way to take a stand was with the backing of large amounts of cash.

Drugs, specifically marijuana, he figured, were a much lesser evil.

In 2004, Gardner and his then wife Kelly paid $350,000 for a mountainous 1700ha sheep grazing property called Kinvarra.

Kinvarra sits just outside of Inglewood, a town of 800 or so in the southern Darling Downs — 150km southwest of Toowoomba.

They’d rented it for a bit before Kelly made the purchase. It was remote. Perfect for Gardner’s needs.

They began planting vast fields of marijuana. Gardner set out plots at least 700 square metres in size. One was 1400sq m.

He set up pumps and sprinkler systems, drawing water from dams and creeks.

His pumps were massive, industrial size things, and brought water to the plants via a network of poly pumps.

He bought the pumps and pipes using cash and a collection of fake names. But he came across as strange, secretive. Sometimes he’d pull out wads of cash from their newspaper wrappings. Shop owners thought it odd.

The dope was packaged and driven to northern New South Wales where it was sold to local dealers. Gardner dressed as a hippie for these journeys. Hopefully any watchful police would think him a Byron Bay type, going about his business.

The home of Michael Gardner. FILE PIC: Tim Marsden

The thousands of plants required a lot of work. Gardner recruited his children as labour. One of his older sons was given his own patch to tend and Gardner agreed to give him a share of the profits.

The younger children, Gardner’s stepchildren, were sent in as slave labour to toil in the fields. They were aged between 11 and 14 and should have been in school but Gardner pulled them out and put them to work.

He was a sadistic, violent man and they were afraid of him. But just to make sure they did what they were told, Gardner began killing their pets.

He kept a large goanna in a cage. Every once in a while, just to ensure their loyalty, he would take a pet cat or dog and feed it to the giant lizard.

He’d make them watch as the animal ate their dog. Or ate their cat. And then the children were sent back to work.

In 2006, one of Gardner’s older children, Michael Jr, moved out to Kinvarra to help his father with a crop. Together, they harvested 1400 pounds of cannabis.

Gardner drove it to Nimbin and sold it to local dealers.

In 2007, another son, Kristen, moved to the property. Kristen had spent a long time away from his family and Michael Jr hadn’t seen him in eight years.

Late that year, the family got together to put in a crop of 10,000 plants over a single weekend.

The family was careful to keep their crops hidden, never planting within one kilometre of a road. FILE PIC: Tim Marsden

One of Gardner’s daughters was pregnant at the time but he didn’t care. He sent her out into the fields anyway.

Michael and Kristen built a fence around the new patch, set up a sprinkler system and built themselves a new base camp.

Looking after a large patch often involved camping out for months at a time. There were all kinds of risks that could rob them of their hard work.

They had to be on the lookout for pot hunters — men with guns who searched the bush for crops.

They never planted within a kilometre of the road and were careful nobody saw them moving in and out of the scrub.

Kangaroos, pigs, pig hunters and all kinds of insects were other problems they had to be on the lookout for.

Kristen spent much of his time filming their activities. He told Michael he didn’t want to make a living from selling drugs. He wanted to be a documentary maker.

Over time, he filmed 300 hours of footage.

“He didn’t want to grow, he wanted a different way to make money,” Michael would later tell police.

“He wanted to basically have an income through that (filmmaking) … and to have some insurance against the old man.”

Gardner was a dictator. He went ballistic if his children made mistakes. Kristen had gotten sick of it in the past and spent a few years in Canada — far away from the clutches of his violent father.

In 2008, he was sick of it again. He left in May and didn’t come back.

Police on the scene at Kinvarra. FILE PIC: Tim Marsden

On June 30 — little more than a month after Kristen’s exit — police arrived.

They had called into a neighbouring property first before searching Kinvarra. They found five enormous plots of marijuana, an elaborate watering system and a series of drying sheds.

They came back the following day and searched some more. This time they found something even more concerning. Gardner had watched them come in. He’d used sophisticated night vision equipment to monitor their visit to the neighbouring property a kilometre away.

He’d watched and then he’d written down what he’d seen.

This time they found a 9mm semiautomatic handgun in a bathroom cabinet hidden under a towel. They’d searched the same cabinet the previous evening and the gun hadn’t been there.

A handgun holster had been left on Michael Jr’s bed. He told them he did not want to answer questions.

Police found other weapons around the property — some in the house and others at campsites. Body shackles, leg shackles, handcuffs, extendable batons, concealable pen guns, military grade night vision goggles, long-range rifle scopes, handgun carry cases and 10,000 rounds of live ammunition — it was everywhere.

Another three crops were found hidden in the bush. Two had already been harvested.

Two sheds, 40m high and 100 long, had been used to dry the crops. Plants hung upside down in the cavernous space. Plastic drums were everywhere and they were full of dried cannabis heads. More than three tonne of the plant. They found cash in a locked shipping container outside the house.

More was buried and still more cash and guns were found tucked into caves.

Photographs on computers showed the family tending the fields.

Part of the huge drug operation on Kinvarra.

Gardner and Kelly had separated by that time. Police went to her for help.

They discovered Kristen had been penning articles for the Canadian Cannabis Culture magazine under the much-read pseudonyms “Joe Walsh” and “Boy Scout”.

He’d written a series of them between 2005 and 2007.

Australian Bush Paradise was so well received, the magazine published a follow-up article. Both came with a photographic spread of the crops.

“I learned from my first season growing in the bush that there are huge losses involved in poor planning,” he wrote in one.

“I was able to stay anonymous, and successful, within the bush for the second season even though it often rained heavily in the final weeks.”

In another, he recounted a nerve-racking drive in a car full of wet plants.

“I sweated through that drive. If anyone stops you in that situation, you are f***ed,” he wrote.

“A car full of wet pot is impossible to disguise. The smell is rank. I was pushing buds from my crowded field of view just to see the road outside. I could hardly move for stalks, buds, and leaves that were like a cocoon around me. My groaning car lurched out of the forest, and lights snapped on in each of the houses I passed, faces peering from the windows to see who would be driving in the rain in the middle of nowhere at that time of the night. These people know growers are all over the forests — they know what you are up to.”

Police charged several family members after finding the enormous crops.

Gardner, the mastermind, was sentenced to 13 years in prison — despite his protests that he should have received more.

The pregnant daughter, Rosemary, was charged over the part she played in helping her father, receiving a wholly suspended jail term.

Justice Roslyn Atkinson — who’d had the unforgettable task of sentencing Gardner — told her to stay away from her father.

“He had a lot of child slave labour to help (him) — what an evil man he was,’’ she said.

“What a dominating personality. He thought he could dominate the court.

“You will need to be careful. Your father will be released from jail. It is important that you separate yourself from him.”

Both Michael and Kristen were given five years prison time.

Kristen has appealed — saying the court did not properly take into account his father’s hold over the family.

Gardner — as promised — has not learned his lesson. He arranged the sale of $280,000 of marijuana — undiscovered by police — from behind prison walls.