Two friends who grew cannabis at a grandmother’s house to raise money for Christmas have avoided jail.

Elliot Mackenzie and Cameron Reid also bought cannabis in bulk and sold it to friends in smaller bags to make a profit.

Police executed a drugs warrant at a house on Higher Antley Street in Accrington on November 7 last year, Burnley Crown Court was told.

Officers found Mackenzie and Reid, both 21, and another man in a back bedroom smoking the drug.

They were surrounded by snap bags of cannabis and cannabis plants worth around £2,300 and had £555 in loose cash.

David Macro, prosecuting, said father-of-one Reid had been growing and selling cannabis for nearly two months and was doing it to get money for Christmas.

He told the court: “He was doing it with his housemate and had been smoking cannabis himself since he was about 12 and decided to grow it to avoid having to buy it from dealers.

“He normally bought seven grammes for £70 and then re-bagged it to make a profit of about £20 overall. The loose cannabis was for his own personal use.”

Mr Macro said the house belonged to Mr Reid’s grandmother and both men had been living there rent-free.

The court was told how trained plumber Mackenzie had been selling cannabis from the house for about four-and-a-half months.

The former Accrington and Rossendale College student, who works for a local engineering firm, was smoking £20 a day of cannabis and started making his own because he couldn’t afford it, the court heard.

Philip Holden, defending, said it was an ‘unsophisticated offence’ and said their naivety was borne out by their early admissions of guilt.

He said: “These are two young men who are unlikely to come back before the court and are both either in or looking for work.”

Mackenzie, of Union Road, Oswaldtwistle, and Reid, of Higher Antley Street, Accrington, both pleaded guilty to producing cannabis and possession with intent to supply.

They were committed to prison for 26 weeks, suspended for 18 months, and ordered to carry out 15 hours unpaid work.

Judge Robert Altham said it was an ‘extremely foolish piece of offending’.

Sentencing, he said: “It mystifies me why the two of you, who are clearly capable of being decent young men, could ever be sufficiently stupid to put yourself in this position.

“This was a commercial set up intending to return a profit which I have no doubt it did.

“You are both capable of doing so much better than this.”