Phillip Spark, 49, appeared at the Ballarat Magistrates Court yesterday facing 18 charges, including possessing “precursor chemicals”, cultivating a narcotic plant and possessing unregistered firearms.

Two charges of trafficking drugs of dependence were withdrawn, while Spark’s defence also questioned the inclusion of another, which states Spark possessed substances “with the intention of trafficking”.

But the prosecution disagreed, arguing the disassembled drug lab found inside the trailer “hasn’t been set up to make just one or two.”

Magistrate Thomas Hassard eventually ordered the charge be included for trial in the County Court.

Yesterday’s proceedings were the final part of a committal hearing relating to the January 2010 arrest of Spark by the Victoria Police Clandestine Laboratory Squad.

The 43 year old pleaded not guilty to most charges, but pleaded guilty to cultivating cannabis.

Earlier in the committal, Middle Creek man Ralph Reid told the court he was asked by a mutual friend in June, 2009, whether Spark could leave a trailer on his property, west of Beaufort.

“I was just asked if they could leave it here ... I thought Phil lived in Ballarat and had no room,” he said. “We never spoke about (the trailer’s contents).”

Mr Reid said the trailer sat at the back of a shed on the property for months until a police raid in January the following year.

Yesterday, Spark’s defence lawyer, Deanna Caruso, said the defence would argue her client never placed the trailer on Mr Reid’s property.

“We say someone else placed the trailer,” she said.

Under questioning, Clandestine Laboratory Squad Detective Acting Sergeant Chris O’Brien said police had no other suspects for placing the trailer on the property.

Spark will now appear in the County Court for a pre-trial directions hearing on May 17.