A ROOFER who ran a "professional" cannabis farm for "extremely substantial profit" has been jailed for four and a half years.

Father-of-three Jonathan Crosland, 45, fitted out a large barn on a farm in Broad Lane, Cawood, as a drug production and processing plant, York Crown Court heard.

Christine Egerton, prosecuting, said he ran it for two years before police descended on it on July 14, 2014, and found 210 cannabis plants, plus enough loose skunk and ordinary cannabis to fetch £119,350 in street deals. The set-up would have produced at least three crops a year. Crosland had powered the farm by illegally extracting £70,000 of electricity from the national grid supply.

Crosland's barrister Jeremy Barton said he had seized an opportunity to make money because he was short of cash and depended for his living expenses on intermittent work as a roofer. He accepted he had a "leading" role in the farm, but denied working alone.

The Recorder of York, Judge Paul Batty QC told Crosland: "You were involved in a cannabis cultivation operation which was extremely professional .......That was an operation which certainly was commercial and was producing significant quantities of cannabis.

"The level of profit, in my judgement, would have been extremely substantial."

Crosland, who lived in three static caravans joined together on the farm near to the barn with his wife Tina, pleaded guilty to producing cannabis from September 2012 to July 2014. A similar charge against his wife and charges of illegally abstracting electricity against both were left on file, meaning that they will appear on their criminal records but are not convictions. Tina Crosland had denied both charges.

Ms Egerton said the barn had 11 areas and had been divided into sections for different stages of growing and conversion of the leaves into cannabis deals. One section had roots left from an earlier crop.

Two metal containers formed two walls of the barn, which, the judge said, had been disguised in an attempt to conceal the activity inside.

Ms Egerton said when police arrived, Crosland claimed he did not have its key but officers found it when they searched the caravans.

Records on his computer showed that he had bought the hydroponic and other specialist equipment including fertiliser and mulch over the internet.

The prosecution did not accept Crosland's account that he had been working with another man.

Mr Barton said Crosland's imprisonment would hit his family hard as he partly paid for their accommodation by doing work on the detached house on the farm, which was uninhabited and covered in scaffolding.