A CANNABIS grower has been jailed for two years after his successful operation came unstuck following a burglary.

A court heard yesterday how 24-year-old Anthony Brown had already sold on two crops of the Class B drug before police discovered his cannabis farm when they were called out to a burglary in Clayton, Bradford, last September.

Prosecutor Frances Pencheon told Bradford Crown Court that most of the 35 cannabis plants being grown at the rented house in Back Lane had been taken during the burglary.

However, following his arrest, Brown admitted that two previous crops had been sold by him to an unknown man.

Miss Pencheon said the equipment for growing the plants had been set up in a bedroom at the house and the electricity meter was also being by-passed.

She said the third crop was about two weeks away from maturity when it was taken during the burglary.

Miss Pencheon told Recorder Richard Woolfall that the three crops could have produced more than 4.7 kilos of skunk cannabis.

It would have had a wholesale value of between £9,640 and £21,240, the court heard.

She said on the streets the cannabis that has been grown at the house could have been worth between £37,000 and £42,000.

After the cannabis farm was discovered at the property, it cost more than £660 to fix the electricity meter.

The landlord of the house was left with a repair bill of more than £3,600.

Brown, of Rooley Lane, Bradford, was yesterday jailed for two years after he admitted charges of producing cannabis, supplying cannabis and abstracting electricity.

Miss Pencheon told the court that Brown had previous convictions, but none of them related to drug offences.

Recorder Woolfall was urged to take account of Brown’s frankness with the police and the judge said he was prepared to give the defendant full credit for his early admission of guilt.

“In the pre-sentence report you are very frank about your criminality,” noted the judge.

“You concede that custody is inevitable. That doesn’t appear to cause you any concern...you seem to take the view that’s an occupational hazard.”