A SON recruited by his father to help harvest a crop of cannabis has avoided a jail sentence.

Lester Steven Bradshaw, 44, of Lea Way, Huntington, is serving three and a half years in jail for setting up and running a drug-growing factory in a remote farm near Easingwold.

Alan Mitcheson, prosecuting at York Crown Court said Bradshaw asked his son, Lester Mark Bradshaw, to help collect the cannabis leaves.

But on what the court heard was the son’s first day of harvesting, police raided the farm.

They caught father and son, plus a third man, at work among the 164 cannabis plants.

The son, aged 21, of Lea Way, Huntington, pleaded guilty to being concerned in the production of cannabis and was given a six-month prison sentence, suspended for two years on condition he completes 180 hours’ unpaid work.

Addressing the son, The Recorder of York, Judge Stephen Ashurst, said of the father: “It doesn’t do him any credit he got you roped in. You should have appreciated this was serious crime you were getting involved in.”

Lester Mark Bradshaw’s barrister, Nicholas de la Poer, did not give any mitigation after the judge said the police had carried out the raid after keeping the cannabis growers under surveillance for some time, but had never seen the son until the day of the raid.

At an earlier hearing, when the father was jailed for conspiracy to grow cannabis, York Crown Court sitting at Teesside heard the crops were worth up to £51,000.