A MAN who ran a drugs factory in his pensioner partner’s home has been jailed.

Peter Fardell, 59, from Worthing, turned to crime after being sacked from his job at a multinational pharmaceutical company.

He tried to start a landscape gardening business but turned to cultivating cannabis in the shed and loft of his 72-year-old partner Christine Hurley’s mid-terraced home.

Police found 152 plants in the shed and loft and more cannabis bagged up ready to sell under his bed when they executed a search warrant in January this year.

The mock Tudor house in Sompting Road was turned into a commercial cannabis farm, Brighton Crown Court was told.

Police found 120 cuttings inside the converted shed filled with specialist equipment, and five bags filled with the drug in a box in the bedroom.

Police drug expert PC Victoria Bailey, who found the stash, said it would have been worth up to £65,320.

Recorder William Featherby jailed Fardell for 16 months at Brighton Crown Court on Wednesday and gave Hurley a 12-month Community Order saying she had made a gross error of judgement in turning a blind eye to her boyfriend’s activities.

Recorder Featherby said: “The two of them hit upon a scheme in which parts of the defendant’s house would be given over to the cultivation of cannabis.”

“This defendant was caught red handed.

“He had all the equipment required to grow cannabis in sub-tropical conditions in a loft in Worthing.

“He was farming on behalf of this friend and supplying onward for wholesale and retail distribution.

“I find you were a small farmer of cannabis acting for profit for an organisation whose size is not known. You very foolishly got involved in this scheme.”

Turning to Hurley, he added: “It is a great shame that this has descended upon you through the misjudgement of your partner at this stage in your life.”

Hurley was also given 40 hours unpaid work for allowing her home to be used for the production of drugs.