AN ELECTRICIAN who started growing cannabis worth £8,000 when work dried up used his expertise to get free power for the ‘sophisticated’ operation.

A court was told how ex-soldier Michael Greenwood, 34, who had begun the ‘skunk’ enterprise at his home in Bacup, slowed his meter down, conning British Gas into thinking he was using the usual amount for his house.

He was still paying his electric bills, so the firm would not suspect anything was amiss.

Greenwood, who told police he had been ‘trying to keep the wolf from the door’, also had a bag of ecstasy at the property in Mowgrain View.

He had 33 large plants, with female flowering tops, in a bedroom, and said he had learned how to cultivate them on the internet.

Greenwood admitted possessing and producing cannabis, possessing the drug with intent to supply, possessing ecstasy, and abstracting electricity, at Burnley Crown Court. Greenwood, who had no previous convictions, was spared immediate jail and given 12 months in prison, suspended for a year, with 200 hours unpaid work.