A CANNABIS growing builder who set up a "sophisticated" cultivating system using stolen electricity, has started a three month jail term.

Peter Gouch, 38, had originally been given community service after police found drugs, including the class A controlled "magic mushrooms", at his Brierfield home three years ago, but had not completed the order.

Sentencing the defendant, Judge David Pirie said the combination of offences he had committed was so serious only custody could be justified. He said Gouch had set up a sophisticated cultivating system and he had wilfully and persistently failed to complete the 150 hour community service order imposed in December 1997, in fact, setting his mind against finishing it.

Gouch, now of Prospect Farm, Colne, appeared at Burnley Crown Court for breach of requirements of the community service order. He had originally been convicted of cultivating cannabis, possessing cannabis, possessing a class A controlled drug and abstracting electricity. Richard Bennett, prosecuting, said police had executed a search warrant at Gouch's then home on Berkeley Street, Brierfield, in March 1997 and found 24 cannabis plants in the process of being cultivated in a back bedroom.

The sophisticated system used lights and ventilation and officers also discovered literature on cultivating the drug and leaflets about hydroponic growing. The electricity meter had been tampered with and a screwdriver had been used to prevent the disc revolving and recording the amount of power used.

Mr Bennett said when the defendant was interviewed he admitted he had been smoking cannabis for 16 years and said he had grown it for his own use. The cultivation system would have cost about £1,000 to set up. He said he was going to make cannabis wine from the leaves.

Paul Hague, defending, said Gouch had been working 12 hours a day, seven days a week, running his own business and then after his brother had a nervous breakdown, he went down to Milton Keynes to manage his brother's business which was working on a dry ski slope.

The defendant was now doing work associated with the Groundwork Trust.