A 60-year-old man who was caught growing a £15,000 cannabis set-up to pay off a drug debt has avoided jail.

Kenneth John Edwards’s home on Spring Street in Accrington was raided by police after neighbours complained of a ‘strong smell of cannabis’.

Officers found 29 large cannabis plants in an upstairs room which could have yielded up to 1.5kg of the drug and a street value of around £15,000.

Judge Philip Parry told Burnley Crown Court that the room was ‘very well set up to grow cannabis’ and included food, lighting, heating, fans, nutrients and books.

Edward pleaded guilty to producing cannabis and abstracting electricity. He was given an eight-month jail sentence, suspended for 12 months with a 15-day rehabilitation activity requirement.

Prosecutor Matthew Haworth said Edwards had abstracted £323.74 worth of electricity from Npower and also caused £141 worth of damage.

When interviewed by police the defendant said he was acting as a ‘gardener’ to pay off a £750 drug debt.

However defence barrister James Heyworth conceded that Edwards was ‘more than just a gardener’ after admitting fitting the cannabis set-up himself and that he had played a ‘significant role’.

He told the court: “His last conviction was more than 30 years ago. He has been away from the court for a significant period of time.

“This was the first [cannabis] crop and it was about three weeks away from being harvested.

“He had an ongoing relationship with cannabis. Debts accrue for people on benefits trying to finance their own drug misuse.”

Mr Heyworth told the court that Edwards is paying back the energy company and is ‘no longer using cannabis’.

The court heard how officers also recovered a red book and a small diary from 2012 with ‘rather suspicious looking material’.

Judge Parry said it could ‘point towards [Edwards] growing cannabis on more than one occasion and I have my suspicion as well’.

The court was told that the probation service also did not find his account of only growing one cannabis set-up ‘credible’.

Sentencing, Mr Parry said: “You set it up yourself. You were more than a mere gardener. You were far more involved than that.”