Police officers smashed in the door of a suspected cannabis factory and found three bedrooms full of plants in South Norwood yesterday afternoon.

Between 250 and 350 plants were found crammed into the three bedroom semi, the street value of which could have netted the cultivators more than £15,000.

Officers from the Woodside Safer Neighbourhoods Team broke down the door in of the Portland Road house after receiving a tip-off from neighbours.

A strong smell of cannabis and a lack of movement in and out of the house prompted residents to call the police.

After knocking on the door and receiving no reply an officer smashed through a stain glass window only to notice a man in his twenties running barefoot out of the back door. However, the man was quickly stopped after trying to make his escape over neighbour’s fences.

Sergeant Dave Humphrey Woodside SNT said: “This operation sends out a message to local residents that we are doing all we can to tackle drug misuse and cultivation.

“Local residents alerted us to the property after detecting strange smells coming from it. That coupled with the fact no-one had been seen going in or coming out of the property for sometime gave us all we needed to go around and have a look.

“We found between 250 and 350 plants growing and the whole upstairs was decked out with lights.”

EDF energy representatives joined the raid and discovered the tenants had dangerously by-passed the electricity and were running the factory from stolen electricity.

The front garden had to be dug up and the electricity isolated before the plants could be removed.