A 52-YEAR-OLD window cleaner caught growing more than 180 cannabis plants at his Bradford home has been sentenced to a 12 month community order with 200 hours of unpaid work.

Antony Stafford, whose crop would have yielded up to 3.24 kilos of the Class B drug, told his probation officer he enjoyed "an occasional cannabis cigarette," Bradford Crown Court heard today.

Stafford pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to production of cannabis at his then home in Briarwood Crescent, Wibsey, on August 6 last year.

Prosecutor John Bull said that the police found 36 mature plants at the address, along with 28 non-flowering plants and 123 seedlings. There were also cuttings in a propagator.

Cannabis with a wholesale value of £5,000 could have been produced by the existing mature crop, Mr Bull said.

Stafford told the police he bought the equipment on line to set up the cannabis farm.

He had ten convictions for17 previous offences, mainly for dishonesty and non for drugs matters, the court was told.

Stafford's barrister, Rodney Ferm, said he had now moved to Nelson in Lancashire.

He was a hard working man who was inexperienced at growing cannabis.

"It was his first attempt and he did not know how well things were going to take," Mr Ferm said.