A 59-year-old man who launched a “hare-brained” scheme to grow hundreds of cannabis plants at his farm supplies business near Oswestry has been jailed for three years.

David Baker had a crop at the premises in Weston Rhyn that could have produced almost 13 kilos of cannabis with an estimated street value of £55,000.

At Wolverhampton Crown Court yesterday Judge Robin Onions told Baker that the responsibility for finding himself before a court for the first time in his adult life was entirely his own.

He said: “The plants were being produced in a commercial manner. They were all ‘female’ plants from which the drug is taken and you knew what you were doing. It would have been your profit to make had any of the cannabis been sold.”

Judge Onions said Baker’s farm supply business had been utterly disorganised and it was likely that he was in financial difficulties when he hit on the hare-brained scheme to produce the cannabis.

Baker, of Rhos Wiel, Weston Rhyn, near Oswestry, appeared at court for sentence yesterday having admitted producing cannabis between September, 2007, and July last year.

Oliver Woolhouse, prosecuting, said the cannabis operation at Baker’s premises was discovered after the defendant and his associate Gareth Jones confronted two men trying to break in to steal the cannabis and neighbours called police.

He said police found 247 plants at various stages of growth in an area hidden behind a false wall inside the premises. A further 76 were found in a camper van and the shoots of 90 cannabis plants were found at Baker’s home address.

Paul Smith, for Baker, said he was of previous good character, his decision to grow cannabis was doomed to failure and he had not been part of a larger criminal group.

The prosecution also requested an investigation on Baker’s financial status under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

At a previous hearing Baker, and Gareth Jones, 39, of Pentre, Nesscliffe, were cleared of wounding Lee Pinkham at Weston Rhyn in July last year.

Jones, who had been sleeping at the farm building to guard the cannabis, and Baker, had confronted Mr Pinkham, who was alleged to have been trying to break into the premises.

Mr Woolhouse said Jones, who had been convicted of producing cannabis, was ill and unable to attend court for sentence. Judge Onions adjourned the case until next month.

By Arthur Mills