A DRUG addict caught red handed at a cannabis factory which had been set up in a rented home has been jailed for two years.

Police found Richard Cork tending to a crop of cannabis and herbal cannabis worth up to £53,000 at a property in Montgomery Road in Bicester when they bust the operation on March 30, 2016.

He was employed as the gardener of the operation and was paid for his efforts with money and cannabis, Oxford Crown Court heard on Wednesday.

Officers found 4.8 kg of cannabis stored in the house.

There were another 78 cannabis plants found in an upstairs bedroom and the garage, along with £380 in cash.

More than 1kg of herbal cannabis was also found at Cork’s own home.

Defending Cork, Christian Wasunna said he had regularly smoked cannabis since he was a teenager, initially to help him cope with his parents’ divorce but that he is working hard to reduce his use.

Cork, 33, who was living with his mother in Addison Drive, Stratford-upon-Avon, before being sent to prison on Wednesday, had been working as a landscape gardener.

Mr Recorder Patrick Hamlin jailed him for two years for two counts of possessing a controlled drug of class B, one relating to the cannabis and the other herbal cannabis, to run concurrently.

He was given a further 12 months for possessing cannabis with intent to supply, to run concurrently.

Cork admitted all three charges.

The owner of the house, Christopher Dunbabin, was cleared of any involvement with the drugs plot in August.