Suspicious neighbours helped police uncover a cannabis factory with almost £150,000 worth of drugs in a quiet Norwich street.

Members of the public contacted officers with their concerns about the address in Cranworth Gardens, near Ipswich Road.

Police then launched a drone which detected 'heat spots' at the property, suggesting that cannabis was being grown there.

Eastern Daily Press: Norfolk Police droneNorfolk Police drone (Image: Norfolk Constabulary)Norwich Crown Court heard officers forced their way in and found Andi Kodra, 22, asleep on a sofa and cannabis worth a total of £149,310 at different stages of growth.

Chris Youell, prosecuting, said four rooms had been converted for drug production, with more than 100 plants found, as well as cannabis being dried.

Kodra -  an Albanian national who arrived in the UK in a dinghy - made no comment when interviewed by police after he was arrested, following the raid on September 10. 

He appeared in court on Thursday to be sentenced, having admitted producing cannabis.

Eastern Daily Press: Norwich Crown CourtNorwich Crown Court (Image: Peter Walsh, Newsquest)Danielle O'Donovan, mitigating, said Kodra, who has no previous convictions, came to this country by dinghy as a way to pay off a debt owed by his father.

After ending up in the UK homeless, she said he found himself sleeping on a park bench in Norwich.

She said worked as a gardener at the cannabis factory after meeting another Albanian man who offered him food and somewhere to stay.

Jailing Kodra, of no fixed abode, for a total of 30 weeks, Recorder Peter Guest said it was a "highly sophisticated operation capable of producing commercial quantities of cannabis".

He said "thousands and thousands of pounds worth of equipment" had been used to ensure cannabis was growing "throughout the house".