A 39-YEAR-OLD man pressured by his drug dealer into renting a property for use as a £15,000 cannabis farm has been sentenced to 120 hours of unpaid work.

Gary Ling, of Bracken Bank Avenue, Keighley, pleaded guilty to permitting premises to be used for the production of cannabis on June 22 last year.

Prosecutor Jonathan Sharp told Bradford Crown Court on Monday that police seized 85 cannabis plants from a house in North Dean Road, Keighley, that would have yielded more than three kilos of the Class B drug.

Mr Sharp said the Crown accepted that Ling was put under pressure by his drug dealer to clear a £15,000 debt.

He was used as a front to rent the property and he helped to carry some items into it.

Ling's barrister, Giles Bridge, said he was of previous good character and had supplied a number of very favourable references.

The Recorder of Bradford, Judge Roger Thomas QC, said defendants often tried to pull the wool over the courts' eyes but in Ling's case, he believed that his story was true.