TWO men who grew cannabis in their spare room have narrowly avoided jail.

Anthony Ferryman, 41, and Gary Faetz, 40, were given suspended prison sentences after the judge accepted their venture was too poorly conceived to have made money.

Police discovered the set-up during a routine visit to Faetz’s home in Central Avenue, Southend.

Basildon Crown Court was told officers smelt an over-powering aroma and went upstairs to discover a spare bedroom decked out with drug-growing equipment.

They found powerful lamps, fans and walls covered in silver lining, which were being used to cultivate 28 cannabis plants.

They also discovered 3.5grams of saleable cannabis and more than a kilo of other parts of the plants which had been left over from the harvest.

They also discovered the men had tampered with the electricity meter to siphon off about £2,500 in electricity to power the operation.

Bruce Clark, defending, said the set-up was nothing like the large scale operations often discovered by police in which thousands of plants were grown for immense profit.

He said the operation had already been abandoned before the police arrived because of the poor quality of the harvest, and that the men had never sold the drug.

Judge Michael Brooke said: “This was a very small and amateurish operation, but the irresistible inference is this was a commercial venture which was intended to make money.”

Ferryman, of Roche Avenue, Rochford, admitted one count of producing cannabis and one count of abstracting electricity in July last year. He was given a 10-month prison sentence, suspended for 18 months, and ordered to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work.

Faetz, of Central Avenue, Southend, initially denied the charges but then entered a guilty plea just before his trial was due to begin in November.

He was given a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for 18 months, and 200 hours of unpaid work. He was also given an 18-month supervision order, and told to complete a Thinking Skills programme, which is aimed at preventing future offending.

Faetz was ordered to pay £350 towards prosecution costs, and Ferryman was told to pay £200.