A failed businessman set up a mini-factory of 91 cannabis plants capable of earning £100,000 a year because he was bullied into it, a court heard.

Adrian Smith, 38, of Westergate Street, Westergate, admitted cultivating cannabis at a hearing three weeks ago, but he told Worthing magistrates yesterday he had been forced into growing the plants by another man.

Smith set up the plants after losing all his money in a business deal in Ireland.

Police raided his rented cottage on June 4 and found plants organised in rows on the garage floor under lighting and an electronic watering system.

They also found cannabis seeds in the dining room and plants in the garden, on the patio.

When Smith was interviewed by police, he told them he was conducting an experiment and the cannabis was for his own use only.

But yesterday his solicitor told the court he had been the victim of bullying. Soheila Richardson, mitigating, said: "Police interviewed Smith and he said he had never done anything like this before and that he admitted what was happening, but the cannabis he was growing would be for his own purpose.

"That is true in the sense he was growing that, but there was another person involved who had asked him to do this.

"He told me he was being bullied by another person."

Miss Richardson said Smith intended to hand all his growing equipment and plants to the man after the first yield.

She added: "He had no intention of selling and he had no intention of commercial cultivation."

Smith, a diabetic who suffers from depression, is separated from his wife but still has contact with her and his four children.

Chairman of the bench Andrew Vivian sent the case to crown court for sentencing.

He said: "We feel because of the quantity and potential value of the yield, plus the arrangements that were made to grow it, it is likely to be beyond the sentencing powers of this bench."