A MAN who let travellers turn a room in his Darlington home into a cannabis farm has been given a suspended prison sentence.

When officers searched Andrew Beaver‘s China Street home they found a cannabis farming operation which had produced 28 plants and 38 cuttings of the Class B drug between April and June this year.

He appeared before Darlington Magistrates’ Court today (October 25) and pleaded guilty to permitting the production of a Class B drug on his premises.

Beaver, 33, told probation service officer Brenda Robertson that he had knowingly allowed a traveller friend to use his house to grow the drugs while he was abroad and had asked him to set up the growing equipment because he did not know how to.

The court heard that Beaver smoked some of the home-grown cannabis for himself and district judge Christina Harrison questioned why he had not been charged with the more serious offence of cannabis production.

Mitigating, Chris Bunting said the charge resulted from what Beaver had said in his police interview.

“What he said to the police is that he had allowed these people to set up the operation in his house,” said Mr Bunting, adding: “His fingerprints were present on a bit of plastic sheeting.”

Ms Harrison sentenced Beaver to 16-weeks in prison, suspended for 12-months.

She also ordered him to complete 180 hours unpaid work and pay £40 towards court costs.