WHEN police officers raided a house they discovered a cannabis factory run on "stolen" electricity, a crown court judge was told.

The officers seized 286 thriving cannabis plants, some 6ft high, at the address in Walderslade, near Chatham.

Tuan Tran and Manh-Van Nguyen were each jailed for two years after they admitted producing the cannabis over a three-month period.

Alex Rooke, prosecuting, said the two Vietnamese were involved in the commercial production of the drug.

When police swooped on the house on October 25 last year they found just Tran, 32, there. The house, said Mr Rooke, was full of plants.

"They were all in compost with plant food and there were a significant number of lighting systems, ventilation and extraction machinery, plus additional heating to speed up growth," he told Maidstone Crown Court.

The electricity meter had been bypassed and £8,000 worth had been abstracted.

Officers then searched an address in Lewisham, South East London, where both men lived, and seized 42.8g of herbal cannabis.

Also found were books on cultivating cannabis, receipts for equipment and information about Nguyen.

Tran said he had been asked by his friend to work for him and he had been going to Chatham daily for the past four or five months to water the plants.

Nguyen, 30, accepted full responsibility for the premises. He said he rented the house so that Tran could set up a cultivation business. He claimed that Tran paid him rent and gave him money to buy equipment.

Mr Rooke said the going rate for herbal cannabis was up to £100 an ounce.

Tran and Nguyen admitted being concerned in the production of cannabis. Tran also admitted possessing cannabis and Nguyen abstracting electricity.

Alan Walmsley, for Nguyen, said the Chatham address was more of a back street workshop, rather than a thriving industrial factory.

Judge Warwick McKinnon told Tran and Nguyen: "I am prepared to accept that neither of you was the Mr Big, but each of you played an integral role and you were each in it for profit.

"This is obviously an extremely serious case involving commercial growing for profit. No other sentence other than immediate custody can be justified."