NEIGHBOURS who discovered a shared interest in drugs joined forces to set up a cannabis farm.

Bolton Crown Court heard how Martyn Winston lived in a flat above Aaron Jubb in Anfield Road, Great Lever.

Police raided the premises on December 30 last year and found 21 cannabis plants in the first floor flat using electricity which had been diverted via an extension lead from Jubb's home.

Winston, aged 39, of Anfield Road and Jubb, aged 24 and now of Boundary Avenue, Frome, Somerset, both pleaded guilty to producing cannabis.

Neither man has any previous convictions and David Lees, prosecuting, said the plants, growing in soil and with the help of lights and extractor fans, would have yielded up to 1kg of the drug, worth as much as £10,000.

"It was one operation very much between the two, although Mr Winston appears to have been putting in all the hard work," he said.

Nicholas Ross, defending both men, said Winston's cannabis habit had been costing him £30 a day and Jubb had been using the drug since the age of 13.

In order to save cash they worked together, with Jubb doing research in the internet about how to grow the plants and Winston doing the cultivation.

Judge Timothy Stead sentenced each man to a community order comprising of 100 hours unpaid work and ordered each defendant to pay a £60 victim surcharge.

He told them: "I have understood that finances were difficult for you when you committed these offences.

"Even though cannabis is, by no means, as hard and serious as class A drugs, it is, nevertheless, illegal."